Observations on Redux
by Squire of Gothos
Summary: Shinji is forced to relive his life. Not 'gets to', 'is forced to.' Oh, and the Angels know. And Rei, and Asuka. This story is the NGE equivalent of the Three Stooges the show, not Shinji Kensuke and Touji crossed with the twilight zone. or not
1. Lilith's Choice

Author's Notes: Alright, I refuse to lay around and mope at my writer's block. I greatly enjoyed Darckredd's rambling and crazy story 'Observations', and so I'm going to relieve my writing stresses with this story. DarckRedd, if you don't approve of this, I'll take it down, but until then, well, you know the drill. This story is for Pyro, who wished my other 'reset' story had humor.

* * *

Observations on Redux

Lilith brooded as the mass consciousness of humanity dreamed. The part of her that was Rei might have been satisfied to have given Gendo the finger by allowing Shinji to control Instrumentality, but something just did not sit right with the way things were going. She could feel Rei preparing for her death. It was obvious the boy was dissatisfied with the way things were, and Lilith agreed with her. The boy would reject Impact, and deposit himself back into the harsh world of light and darkness. And for what purpose?

"To see them all again," Rei told her. "He does not mind getting hurt, as long as he has a possibility of obtaining happiness."

"That's absurd," thought Lilith. "Isn't he one with humanity right now? Why can't he find happiness in some shared dream with them?"

"That's the thing," Rei answered with an ethereal sigh. For a moment Lilith wondered who she was really talking to. Herself? The two of them were technically one being now, and...

"Does it matter?" Rei asked placidly.

"I guess not. Now, you were saying," Lilith drew Rei back on topic.

"Yes. His dream..." The two of them looked into the mind of Shinji Ikari.

A world coalesced around them. It didn't look very realistic at all, and Lilith scratched her head in confusion, wondering what was wrong. Oh, the scale. Shinji was standing on the earth, a happy smile on his face. Images of all his friends and acquaintances were all around him, clapping and congratulating him.

"You see?!" Rei exclaimed.

"This is his dream...?" Lilith asked in disbelief. "None of those people are there," she said, a touch of sadness in her voice.

"No," Rei answered sardonically. "They are not. And could you blame them? Who in their right mind would want to share in such a dull dream? Even as socially deprived as I am, and as much as I want Shinji to be happy, I could not take part in something as warm and sickeningly fluffy as that." Rei looked at the Rei-image Shinji had unknowingly constructed. She tried to contort her own face to match the joyful expression, but simply could not.

Lilith/Rei delicately withdrew from the construct. "He will soon discover that no one is sharing in his dream," Rei said slowly, "then he will reverse Instrumentality and we will die."

"Why could he not have a more enticing dream?" Lilith wondered. She had looked in on Asuka, who was currently having a very torrid session of, ahem, baking, with Kaji. Actually, Misato was 'cooking' as well, and Kaji was bouncing between the two realities like a ping-pong ball. Neither Asuka nor Misato knew they were sharing Kaji, for the same reason Shinji did not know he was alone. Well, not completely alone. Penpen, bless his black little heart, had chosen to stay in the boy's reality. The penguin had gotten enough of Misato and Kaji se-, er, 'baking' back in the real world, and was happy enough to stay with Shinji. Atleast the boy did not try to have drinking contests. Or if he did, the penguin was reasonably sure he would win.

"Surely Shinji has a little more imagination than this," Lilith insisted.

"No," Rei answered. "He actually did try to approach Asuka early in the Impact..."

"Really!?" Lilith perked up. "Our little Shinji tried to put the moves on Asuka?"

"Well," Rei temporized, "It didn't quite work out that way, but..."

"Surely she would give him a chance," Lilith rationalized. "The way those two went at it in real life, and how sad she looked when you two were at the train station..."

At this Rei blushed and smiled a little. "That was a good day," she said softly, remembering how happy Shinji had been.

"But not for Asuka!" Lilith prodded her. "She was jealous. Which means she had feelings for the guy." Lilith put her hand to her chin in thought. "So she actually showed up in one of Shinji's early realities. I know it doesn't take long for things to devolve between the two of them, but surely..."

"She threw a pot of coffee at him, and he ended up choking her to death," Rei said suddenly.

"I see," Lilith said slowly. "Well, that explains why she isn't in his reality now... hey!" she looked accusingly at Rei, who was touching both her index fingers together and averting her gaze. "You... you manipulated that reality!" Lilith accused.

"Maybe..." Rei answered shyly.

"You couldn't stand to see the two of them together."

"Well..." Rei tried to ignore Lilith's piercing look.

"How could you!" Lilith scolded her counterpart. "Why, with all the repressed feelings those two had, they both probably would have snapped and been all over each other rutting like wild ani-MMPH!" Rei had put a hand over Lilith's mouth, her head turned away to hide her tears.

"Don't say it."

"Hey, don't cry." Lilith put her arm around the blue haired girl, reaching around and wiping away the tears slipping down her face. "Why don't you go to him? He's got no one else."

"He's afraid of me."

"Aah, he just needs some time. I'm sure he'll..."

"No," Rei said with finality, looking up with determination. "He'll end Impact, I'll die, and everything will be alright."

Lilith was shocked at the morbidity of that statement. "Wh-what?"

"Yes, everything will be fine. Just fine..." Rei sat herself down some ways away from where Shinji stood, his happy expression faltering slightly.

_No, this won't do at all,_ Lilith thought, looking from Shinji to Rei. _I have to do something. At this rate,_ she frowned in thought. When instrumentality ended, the strong-willed would be able to return, if they wanted. Asuka, for sure. She looked back to Shinji, whose face was rapidly degenerating from joy into a very serious thoughtfulness. _The way he's going, Shinji will come back as well. And when they wake up together, one of the two will kill the other._ After all, Shinji had already tried once, and Asuka would have been pulled from a very pleasant Kaji-dream. It just depended on who regained consciousness first.

She looked up to find Shinji's world in ruins. The boy was laying in a pool of LCL, and Rei was with him in a very lewd position, whispering something in his ear. With a start, she felt Instrumentality begin to crumble. _I waited too long,_ she thought sadly, as she watched Shinji shake Rei's hand and dissolve his world. _But why does Rei have a death-wish?_ Lilith didn't mind, she had lived a very full and long life (albeit the last part had been a little boring, she being tacked up to a cross with a forked stick shoved through her gut, but beggars can't be choosers). _Wait just a minute..._

She watched as Rei's ethereal form floated on the ocean of LCL in the real world, watching over the two supine figures who had been brought back. _She... all she wants is to see one of them murder the other before she dies! That little vixen... _Even now Shinji was awakening, and as the boy crawled over to Asuka's form and began to choke her, she could see Rei edge closer, not wanting to miss anything. Truth be told, Rei's plan didn't bother Lilith all that much. After all, the two were quite close, in more ways than one. What hurt was that Rei had not shared it with her. _Well, two can play this game. I have a few secrets of my own, _she thought, materializing a small remote with a single button and the words 'Do Not Push Under Any Circumstances' written on it in rather large and frightening letters. She pushed it.

Reality began to fade around her, and she wondered briefly if she had done the right thing. _Nah, Shinji for sure would have killed Asuka. I'm doing everyone a favor. Really I am, after all, if I had waited a momen-_ her thought was rudely interrupted by a horrible moment of the most intense agony imaginable, after which she felt nothing.

* * *

When next Lilith awoke, she was again in the depths of Terminal Dogma, and that damned forked stick was pinning her to her cross. _Okay, so my plan had a few downsides. No problem, I can deal with this._ She loaded up her old standby, 'Freecell.' Her last win-loss record stood at fifty four thousand nine hundred and eighty six won games to seventeen games lost. She had long since found that pressing 'control' 'alternate' 'delete' and forcibly ending a game would keep it from showing up on her 'Losses.' (A/N: This works. Sad, but true.) She had included the seventeen losses just so the record looked a bit more believable. That fool Iruel hadn't even bothered to try to hide her own hack. Before being taken out by Ritsuko, her record had stood at something like ninety thousand wins to zero losses.

"Hey, who's the fool," Iruel murmured, languishing in her nascent form, waiting until the proper day to hatch herself upon the unsuspecting MAGI. "You had the world in your hands, and now you're back here!"

"Watch your tone, sister," Lilith chided. "This was all part of the... plan."

"What plan?" scoffed Iruel. "Ninety-thousand and one, by the way."

"I'm ignoring you," Lilith retorted sullenly, turning back to her own game. _Damn, this one looks unwinnable._ She pondered whether or not to make her losses column a little more believable, or to forcibly end the game and load another.

* * *

Meanwhile, Shinji was slumped beneath the phone at which he had reappeared. The recording was yammering on about a state of emergency, but he had heard it all before. He was in one of his usual Shinji-depressions, but this time he didn't quite know why. _Would killing Asuka have given me happiness?_ He figured he would never find out now. The next time she saw him, she would undoubtedly be on her guard.

* * *

Rei winced as she opened her good eye, looking around tiredly at the familiar ICU hospital room she inhabited.. _Lilith betrayed me,_ she thought with a sad little sigh. _But I guess I don't mind that much. I kind of hid my own plan from her after all..._ She closed her eyes, a tiny smile flitting across her neutral features as an outraged scream from a certain enraged red-head echoed from halfway around the world. The overhead light fixture cracked slightly as the scream turned extremely shrill. _That was almost as satisfying as watching him kill her..._

* * *

Author's Notes: Now what? Heaven only knows. Or maybe Seele, they have the scrolls... Don't worry, this won't keep me from my Love Hina fics. If I wasn't doing this, I'd be staring at a blank screen, locked in an endless loop trying to write... my Love Hina fics. Actually... ah screw it. I'm the author, why do I have to explain my reasonings ;-)

More to the point... is there such a thing as Humor/Tragedy? I think that's what I'm going to have to call this.


	2. Angels Like Their Legs

Author's Notes: Actually, I'm not so sure a story like this really lends itself to a definite pairing ;-) still, you know my preffie

Also, the main reason I kept it T rated was because I didn't plan on doing any kind of actual lemon in this one. The original Observations was rated K+, but I think back then the ratings weren't as strict, because there was quite a bit of twitchy stuff later in that story. And I mean all that in a good way, of course ;-)

* * *

Chapter 2 -- Alas Poor Sachiel, We Hardly Knew Thee

The ground trembled beneath him, and Shinji cast his tired eyes to the skyline with a deeply depressing sigh. _Here we go again... _He watched as the giant monster swatted at the buzzing VTOLs around its head. Every once in a while the Angel's swinging fist would connect with a craft, and the pilot's tiny little dejected scream was audible even from where Shinji stood. _Haven't they learned anything? Why are they still charging head-on to die?_ He did not know that the VTOL pilots had no memory of the previous reset.

The monster seemed to give off a long screech of rage as it turned its head in his direction. _Oh, well that's not too surprising. It remembers me. This is turning into a very bad day... _The monster let out a roar, and Shinji was somewhat surprised. _Didn't it screech a minute ago? Wait, it's still screeching..._ No, that wasn't right. The screech got louder and louder, and Shinji had just turned around, having come to the conclusion that the screech was not from the Angel, but it was too late.

In fact, the horrid squealing was from Misato's car tires. It seemed the woman had just bought drifter tires (for whatever reason), and she was making good use of them. Shinji got off a surprised yelp, and then he was inside Misato's sports car. The woman had slid the car sideways for over a block, and she had flung open the passenger door right before impacting Shinji's stationary form.

"Hiiiiyiiiis, Shinji-kuuuun!!" the raven-haired woman yelled enthusiastically. Shinji coughed desperately, disentangling himself from the crazy lady, trying not to choke on her hair, which had changed directions as suddenly as the car, and was finding its way down his throat whenever he breathed in. "Oooh, you naughty boy!" she shrieked, doing her best to blush mightily. In between spinning the steering wheel crazily from one side to the other, she managed to place a hand on his skull and imbed it into the frame on the opposite side of the car. "Keep your hands in the vehicle at all times, and if you have to hurl do it out the window!!" she screamed happily. "Hopefully in the direction of that thingy out there!"

The car veered crazily, bouncing around the street and off buildings like a pinball as Sachiel did his best to stomp the car into the pavement. _Idiot little kid, going off and killing me..._ It was obvious the Angel remembered their last encounter. The big guy extended his lance, desperately trying to skewer the car, but instead only serving to trap his arm into the hardened armor of the street. _Dammit!_ The Angel tugged on his arm, trying to free himself.

"Ahahahahaha!" The woman was at the same time, driving (if you could call it that), looking back at the stuck Angel with a gleeful expression, and punching numbers into her phone so fast her thumb was blurring into invisibility. "GendoGendoDo-it-do-it-do-it-he's-trapped-he's-trapped!!" Misato screamed into the phone's receiver. Shinji squeezed one eye shut, holding his head and trying to parse out what she was saying. Gendo must have replied, for the crazy look in her eyes intensified to truly dangerous levels. Before he could reach over and put on his safety belt, Misato's hand had shot over and slammed the belt across him, while at the same time she speed-dialed another number into her smoking phone. Her next four words were partially intelligible, but by the time Shinji deciphered them, there was not even enough time to panic. "Cancel-that-linear-train!"

As he pondered her words, he heard her gun the engine (if such a thing was possible with her foot already at the floor). Then he went weightless, and it all clicked in his mind. She had jumped the car into the air using an all-too-conveniently-placed tow-truck with its ramp down as a jump-off point (he later found out she had phoned ahead earlier saying she needed to be towed. In her own words, "either it was going to work, or I would have needed his services anyway!" As it turned out, she managed to need both). _But why? _Shinji wondered to himself. _And what is she on?_

"hehehehehehehe!!" a string of drool hung from her happy expression and out the window as she clinched the steering wheel. Behind her, an N2 mine went off, propelling the car and its occupants into a long screaming arc through the air. Somehow, the string of drool continued to trail along the back of the car, quivering in the airstream. The scream (and the drool-string) were cut off abruptly as the car punched right through the closed gates of the linear-train station, and Shinji lowered his arms to find that the car was falling through the air down towards the ground of the geo-front below. He glanced over, and Misato seemed happy, but he knew that was not a firm indicator that he would survive the landing (if her previous actions were in any way connected to how she might act in the future, which itself was no sure thing).

* * *

Shinji awoke to find himself in traction, in a NERV hospital room. Gendo stood at the foot of his bed, a perturbed expression on his face (which was no different than normal actually), and Misato stood beside him, a face-splitting grin plastered on her head, bouncing rapidly up and down as she stood. Against all odds, the woman had managed to escape without even a scratch.

"Why'dja try to climb out tha window, Shinjikun??" she shrilled. "I told'ja I had a drag-chute! Everything-would've-been-fine!"

"Never mind that, Captain," Gendo said, looking just a tad uncomfortable. "We have to get the boy and Rei into the machine..."

Something twitched inside Shinji's skull at the mention of that name, and his eyes flitted to the side, coming to rest on the object that until recently he had adored, and now he feared with a passion. "...c-c-c-c-clone!" he stammered out, managing to toss himself from the bed, dragging along all his IV-drips and machines behind him in a big jumbled mess as he tried to exit the door at high speed. Rei gave a sad little sigh and closed her eyes again. Shinji passed out.

* * *

In another world altogether, it was a bright sunny day. The birds were singing and the wind whispered through the trees as Shinji walked along. Rei was perched on his shoulders, and he held his mother's hand as the three of them enjoyed a walk in the park. Well, the two of them walked, anyway, Rei being piggyback.

"This is pleasant," Shinji observed.

"Isn't it?" Yui agreed quietly.

"We should do this more often," Shinji said happily.

"But I thought you hated to pilot," Yui responded, concern on her delicate features.

"...pilot?" Shinji wondered, and everything changed.

* * *

He was in his entry plug, and Rei was perched on his shoulders, her feet jammed through the little openings of the pistol-grip controls. In a horrible moment of hallucination, he remembered what had happened.

_Hallucinatory Flashback_

"_We've got to get them both into the entry plug before he wakes up," Gendo yelled, as Misato carried both pilots, one over each shoulder. Rei desperately tried not to scream from the pain._

"_Why, oh-wise-Commander?" Misato shouted the question into Gendo's ear as they both ran for the Eva-Bay. Gendo winced._

"_Rei syncs at fifty percent, and the boy probably won't do much better. Maybe together, they'll be a hundred percent..." Gendo muttered._

"_Oh-oh-oh, plus, put together, they both have enough bones intact to count as one healthy individual?" she prodded, and Gendo had to reluctantly agree._

_End Hallucinatory Flashback_

"...c-c-c-clo-" Shinji was about to shriek out the hated word, and Rei slapped a hand over his mouth, and another over his eyes.

"Quiet, boy," she said softly, holding back her tears. "Rei is trying to pilot." Her right foot twitched against the pistol-grip control, and Unit-01's right arm bitchslapped Sachiel into a building. Shinji managed to squirm out from under Rei and crawl to the back of the entry plug as Rei continued to lay the smackdown on the poor Angel. As long as he was in the entry plug with her, she could use his sync power, willing or not. Her fighting style (Shinji noticed, as he hyperventilated, which is quite uncomfortable in LCL), was a little strange to say the least. She appeared to be using a rather arcane style of Drunken Fist.

_Or maybe that's because of her injuries,_ his lucid side wondered. Then the Rei-terror grabbed hold of his mind and he pounded uselessly against the back of the plug. "Open the door! Let me out!"

Yui materialized behind him. "I'm sorry, Da-, er, Shinji, I can't do that," she intoned, looking at him with a wistful expression before turning to observe Rei's antics. The Angel had lashed out with its energy lance, and Unit-01 had, quite humorously, fallen just at that moment, somehow getting its legs tangled up with the Angel's.

"Oh, oops, sorry about that," Rei murmured, kneeing the creature 'accidentally' as she got to her feet. The Angel doubled over in agony. "...ooh, hey, that looked like it hurt," Rei crooned, bending over and stretching a hand out towards the Angel. The poor thing tried to backpedal and give itself some room, but Unit-01 happened to be standing on its foot, and it went into a heap on the street. Rei seemed to trip over the the thing's legs, and elbowed the Angel in the eye as she fell. "...oops! I didn't mean to..."

"Why is this happening..." Shinji moaned from the rear of the plug. When his pitiful pleas did not get him any reaction, he became perturbed. "Someone help me." Nothing. "Mother...!"

"...what??" Rei and Yui yelled, turning their heads at the same time.

Shinji found this slightly disturbing, and Rei's cheeks colored a cute pink. Outside, the Angel was desperately trying to escape out from under the fallen Unit-01. "Look, Pilot Ikari, it's confusing enough that I have to try to sync with this woman, so could you cut me some slack?"

Shinji pondered the situation. "...actually, when I think of you as my mother, that feels right." He was surprised to find the fear had mostly gone, and he sat down cross-legged, his hand on his chin. A light-bulb seemed to go off above Rei's head, and she turned in the plug-seat, accidentally tapping one of the pistol-grip controls. Sachiel had just managed to free himself, and Unit-01's hand fell onto the thing's leg. The Angel clawed the pavement trying to get away.

"Come sit on your mother's lap," she said, smiling and patting her knees, and Shinji hesitantly stepped forward. "There now," she said in a very motherly way as she reached up and smoothed out his hair, which was drifting lazily in the LCL. Shinji smiled. The girl really did look and act kind of like his mother, and he began to relax. "...oh, hold on a moment." Rei drew her prog-knife and tacked Sachiel's leg to the pavement. By this point, the Angel was beyond frantic, and with a splorching sound it left its leg behind and proceeded to hop away down the street, trying to escape its tormentor. "Oh well," Rei said cheerfully, reaching around to steady the boy on her lap. She accidentally elbowed him in the cheek, and he cried out.

"...aah, I'm sorry about that," she said in a sing-song voice, compassion in her eyes. "Here, let me make it better..." she touched her lips to his cheek, and he calmed down. Her lips quickly slid over to his, and she frenched him. Which had been her plan all along.

"MMMPHFFFL-AAAAH!" Shinji managed to disentangle his mouth from hers, a disturbed look on his face as he scrambled off her lap. "That's not how mothers kiss...!" he stammered, his face beet red, hands over his mouth in horror and embarrassment. He curled up into a fetal position behind the plug-seat as Rei gave another of her sad little sighs.

"Too much too soon?" she asked quietly.

"Probably," Yui answered her.

* * *

Gendo watched the viewscreen in Central Dogma as Satchiel hopped away in one direction, and Unit-01 trudged along in the other direction towards an entry point.

"How do we call that one?" Fuyutski asked from behind him.

"Tie, I think," Gendo answered his old friend.

"Are we going to let it get away?"

"...eh," Gendo grimaced. "How much trouble can a one-legged Angel get into, anyway?"

Fate sniggered evilly. She only got to unleash her true powers when certain phrases were uttered, like 'What could possibly go wrong?' or the like, and Gendo had provided her with a perfect opening.

* * *

Author's Notes: That didn't go anything like I'd originally planned. As if I had a plan (snicker). How much trouble _can_ a one-legged Angel get into?

Also, is that a cliffie? I can't quite tell...

This is sad, but I think Misato is a self-insert, atleast in terms of how I feel as I write the story :-p.'.'.'.'.'.


	3. Angels Like Their Legs II

Fate strummed her guitar, and the world danced to her tune. Or in this case hopped. Sachiel hopped, anyway, having only one leg. _Dammit, why can't I regenerate? _the beast thought angrily. _I must go see my father. He will know._ Then Sachiel slapped an appendage to his face, remembering that going to see his father was how he had gotten into this mess to begin with. That nasty purple thing had... Sachiel repressed the terrible memory as best he could. Never mind, the problem had been his frontal attack. His aim was different, now, he merely wanted to talk to father. Wiping out the entire species from this cursed planet one soul at a time beginning with those who had enslaved his father could wait for later.

* * *

Shinji lay in his bed, listening to his SDAT. Or rather, the ear-plugs were in his ears, and he had pressed the play button, but the tape had long since reached the end, and had silently clicked off. The boy had not noticed because he was engrossed in his thoughts, and also because for some reason he was hearing a faint melody being strummed upon a guitar. It was quite entrancing, and there seemed to be a low rhythmic thumping accompanying it. _My life is repeating,_ the boy thought to himself. _No, that's not true..._ his life was definitely not repeating. For one, Misato had not been a crack-head (or whatever it was that had changed. Shinji fervently hoped that his guardian's new personality was caused by some recreational drug, and was not a permanent part of her psyche). And Rei was different. _How many people are different? How many remember?_

* * *

Sachiel had snuck back into Tokyo-3 (as well as a multi-story alien missing a leg can sneak, but meh), and he was quite proud of the accomplishment. Sadly, the pride was misplaced. He may very well have been able to sneak in on his own, though the probability was quite low, but in this case it was fate that he make it into Tokyo-3. Or rather, Fate. The woman had plucked out a complicated tune, and a bunch of technicians had fallen asleep. Shortly after that, a bunch of sensors developed temporary amnesia, and a bunch of people were made to forget about the rhythmic thumping they had just heard (which was the Angel jumping along on its single leg).

To make a short story even shorter, Sachiel pried open an entry point, dropped down with a very noisy clatter (Fate ran through a complicated series of chords and erased a few more memories and sensors), and made his way to Terminal Dogma. He hopped into a large room, spied a white form tacked to a cross, and his face fell.

"Father, they've taken your legs too??" he asked in stunned disbelief. "Wait, you're not father..."

Fate could hardly contain herself. _Let's see how you like _these_ apples, Gendo..._

* * *

Meanwhile, Shinji was preparing to do the heroic thing and foil Fate's plot. Well, actually he was having a mental breakdown, but it all comes out the same in the end. _How come I never got to kill Asuka? _he thought with a depressing sigh._ Why is Misato acting so crazy? Why did Ayanami... um..._ The boy brought his hand up to his lips with a blush, realizing that even if the thought that Rei was a clone drove him batty, he had enjoyed the kiss. _No!_ He clutched his head in frustration. _I wish this would all just end!_ And so it did. He was in control of the resets, after all.

* * *

Lilith looked up from her Freecell in triumph.

"Alright, take that Iruel! Um..."She noticed Sachiel. _How did an Angel get in here?_ she thought in confusion. Then everything changed.

* * *

Shinji sat up, scrubbing at his eyes as he looked around. He had awoken on a beach, and the ocean was a sickening peuce color. _Post Third Impact, _Shinji thought with a sigh. Beside him he noticed Rei, and Asuka, and... Asuka? He automatically made a move to strangle her, then he noticed she was awake. And very perturbed.

"I think you've got some explaining to do, Third," she said in a low growl.

"...um, well, you see," Shinji decided for the truth. "During Third Impact, you wouldn't have se- BAKE, um, you wouldn't bake... with me," he finished lamely. _Damned T rating, _Shinji thought.

"'Bake?' What the hell are you on, Third?"

"No, umm, you wouldn't, you know," Shinji pushed his two index fingers together, blushing quite deeply.

"Because you wouldn't do this!" Rei exclaimed softly, stepping over and kissing him rather thoroughly.

"Yes, that's right," Shinji said, smiling gratefully. "Thanks Rei-AAAAH!" It had just dawned on him what she had done. "C-C-C-CLO-"

Rei slapped a hand over his mouth, hurt on her porcelain features. "Please don't, Shin-chan, you finally called me by my first name. Let me keep that happy memory."

"Dammit, First, what do you think you're doing?" Asuka shrieked. Fortunately there was no glass nearby.

"I'm doing what you were always afraid to do," Rei replied calmly.

"WHAT???"

The two of them began to slap-fight, then Rei stepped back a pace or two and fell into a Drunken Fist fighting pose. And by fell, I mean that literally. Asuka stepped forward gingerly and pushed a toe against Rei's twitching form. This, incidentally, is _not_ the way to approach someone skilled in the art of Drunken Fist. Rei was kind enough to inform Asuka of this fact in the most violent way possible.

"...psst, kid..."

Shinji glanced over to his left, and was not surprised at all to see a chibi-Lilith stuck to a little cross with a human-sized Lance of Longinus. After crack-head Misato and Drunken-Fist Rei, he had resolved never to be surprised again.

"Kid, could you let me down?"

Shinji took the lance in his hands and with a mighty heave he freed Lilith.

"My name is Shinji, by the way."

"Ah! And I am Lilith. Your great-great-great-great-"

Shinji pondered whether he should stick her back to her cross.

"...eh, never mind." She had noticed Shinji's eyes glaze over. "Anyway, congratulations! You control the resets, because you have the highest sync ratio!"

"...that's... just silly!" Asuka croaked from where she was lying in a twitching heap. Rei stopped prodding her with her toe, turning around to look at chibi-Lilith. Another light-bulb went off above her head. Shinji remembered what happened the last time he had seen Rei with that expression, and as he wondered how he was going to escape, he inadvertently sent them all back to reality.

* * *

Fate was perturbed. Things had changed, and she had not been the one to change them. She followed the strings of change, and they all led back to... _Him?? _Shinji way lying on his bed listening to his SDAT. _That's impossible. Well I'll fix him..._ She plucked out a truly disturbing theme upon her guitar, and watched as the boy cringed, checked his ear-bugs, then shrugged, closing his eyes again. _He's immune? Intriguing._ Fate had never found anyone who was immune to her ministrations. _This requires drastic measures..._

* * *

Shinji sat at his desk, deep in thought as he waited for class to start. He had reappeared back at the beginning, and things had proceeded about the same, but with the players switched around.

_Hallucinatory Flashback_

_Misato had somehow taken out several VTOLs, and had almost caught him when Sachiel came to his rescue._

"_Listen, kid..."_

"_Shinji! The name's Shinji," the boy groused._

"_...Shinji," Sachiel continued placatingly, as he carried the boy closer to a NERV entrance. "Look, if I save you from that crazy lady, will you let me keep my legs?"_

"_...umm," Shinji could see no flaws in this plan. It might even tick off Gendo. "Sure, why not?"_

_End Hallucinatory Flashback_

Sachiel had left, and Gendo had launched him in Unit-01 to end Misato's rampage. It had been a tough battle, and his Eva would be in traction for a week, but he had succeeded in his mission. It was almost enough to bring him out of his daily Shinji-depression, and then Fate reared her cute head. The classroom door slammed open, revealing a smiling female fourteen year old in the usual school uniform. A guitar case was slung across her back.

"Hello! I'm Mana Kirishima," she exclaimed happily to the stunned class. "Let's be good friends!"

Asuka's eyebrow twitched.


	4. Crouching Monkey Hidden Squirrel

Author's Notes: Harem, huh? And that's the second time someone's asked, so I guess I have to answer ;-) Hm... yes..? no! wait.... (counts on fingers) What counts as a harem again? hm... what if... well see, it's like this. Rei at the moment is pretty much the only one that really likes him (probably), still, (Misato? hm...) not Asuka... well, actually Asuka is acting pretty possessive and jealous, so maybe so. "Yes." (looks around and finds he is talking to an empty room) oh well

* * *

The classroom had gone mostly silent at this newcomer.

"Wait, wait, wait," Shinji held his head, which had begun to pound. "Asuka, when did you get here? Aren't you supposed to still be in Germany?"

"Why're you interrogating me when this freak is stealing my lines??" Asuka shrieked, startling a few birds from their perch a quarter mile away. "I took an over-night and got in this morning," she said, moderating her voice from 'ear-splittingly corrosive' to 'sickeningly sweet.' "It's obvious you and the First can't be trusted together." _And I'm here to kill you the minute you turn your back._

Shinji caught that last part from the way the side of her mouth had a nervous little tic to it. _This is no good. I need some time to make a plan..._ He was just about to send himself to the Post-Third-Impact world when Mana/Fate waved her arms frantically.

"Shinji-kun, wait!"

Asuka's head whipped around. "What is this, the Ikari fan club??" she snarled. _Why is everyone throwing themselves at him today?_ she wondered.

Shinji looked up. "...y-yes? What is it, Mana?" he asked somewhat hesitantly. The boy found himself wracking his brain, but this was not Girlfriend of Steel, and so he could find no reason for the familiarity he felt with her.

"...um, could you, bring me into the resets?" she asked, giving him an adorable little smile.

Before Shinji could utter a single word in question, a talking rat popped into existence on his shoulder. "...ooh, yes, yes, big brother should let her into the resets!" the little white animal nodded its head as it smoked a cigarette.

"How?" Shinji was too confused to argue.

"A kiss, a kiss!" the rat crooned, puckering up its lips and miming one, before jumping down, materializing a piece of chalk, and drawing a circular set of arcane symbols into the floor of the classroom.

"Now wait just a minute!" Asuka screeched, standing up.

Hikari stomped over to join the fray. "Yeah, we're not going to have any of this weird witchcraft stuff in this cla-AACK!"

Mana put her hand on the girl's head and shoved. "One side, Miss Perfect, I've got business with Shinji-kun here!" She stepped over, dragged the confused boy into the magic circle and put her lips over his. Shinji had just begun to lean into the kiss when she flung him aside, grabbing the Tarot card that popped into existence. "Now what, rat?!" she demanded.

"My name is Kamo," the ermine huffed. "And now you are in the resets. And you have a magical artifact."

"Oh, really?" Mana looked only mildly interested. "Oh, wait, this thingy?" with a 'poof' the card became a white-haired boy with a grim expression on his face.

"Put me down," the boy intoned. She had been holding the card, and now she was holding him by the collar.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Fate," the boy replied in a very bored way.

"What? Don't make me laugh, boy, I was Fate while you were in diapers." Mana looked at him with a critical eye.

"Actually you don't know that, since Akamatsu has not yet expounded on my past," Fate replied.

"This is stupid!" Mana huffed, tearing up the card.

"No, wait!" the boy exclaimed, before disappearing in a puff of particulate matter.

Mana snatched Shinji back into the circle and kissed him again. This time she kept one hand on his collar as she looked critically at her card.

"No, no, that's not the way it works!" Kamo screamed, his fur standing on end. "And stop tearing up cards, those are worth fifty grand apiece!"

Her card 'poofed' into a guitar pick. "What the hell??" she said in disgust. "I don't use picks. Still..." she mulled over the small triangle of plastic, wondering what it would do when used with her already magical guitar. She was quite proud of the perfectly-formed guitar-picking callouses she had built up over the timeless aeons.

"It's my turn," Rei's soft voice cut through the silence, as she backhanded Mana over a few desks and moved towards Shinji with hunger in her eyes. The suddenly terrified boy backed away a few paces as Mana clattered through a row of desks before coming to a halt.

"Why'd you do that, you blue-haired hussy?!" she yelled.

"Walking plot-device," Rei answered sweetly, drawing closer to Shinji.

"Red-eyed freak!" Mana retorted.

"Guitar-playing hippy," the albino chirruped back.

"Psychotic clone!"

Rei's face paled at the hated word, and she turned to face Mana. "I shall now administer a beat-down you won't soon forget," she said softly, then fell onto the floor in a twitching heap. Asuka snickered and pulled up a chair, knowing what would follow.

"Eat guitar!" Mana shrieked, pulling her instrument from its case and preparing for battle. Before she could follow up her words, a horrible squeal from the outside parking lot drew the attention of half the class. Misato was scrawling her name into the pavement with her drifter-tires, and Shinji's confusion was complete.

"But it's not parent-teacher-meeting..." the boy mumbled helplessly as he was carried to the window by the general stampede of the entire male population of the classroom. They got to the window in time to see Misato's foot send the car door half-way across the parking lot where it clattered to a halt. She had spelt out 'Misato Rocks!' into the pavement, with the car being the exclamation point at the end. Leaping out of the small sports coupe with a psychotic fire in her eyes, she faced her fan club with a shriek of glee.

"HELLOOO, BOYS! I'M BAAACK!!!"

The wave of drool coming down the side of the building was truly gargantuan. As if to accentuate the strangeness of the current happenings, a funeral dirge began to play. Shinji looked slightly startled, and then flipped open his phone.

"...h-hello?" he answered hesitantly. He waited a couple of beats listening to the message. "No. No, that makes perfect sense," he said with a very resigned expression. "I'll be right over." As he flipped his phone closed, a cheerful German waltz began to play.

Asuka pulled out her phone and slid it open next to her ear with a cheery "Ja?" There was a bit of yammering in the background. "Rightyo!" she said in a happy voice, snapping the phone shut.

It was at that point that a particularly memorable strain of the 'Hallelujah Chorus' began to play. Rei did not even make a move to answer her phone, and Asuka's cheery features snapped over to 'Death Becomes Her' in about two tenths of a second.

"You chose that ring-tone on purpose didn't you First?!" she screeched, and Rei gave her a 'who, me?' look. "I'll seriously kill you!! I swear I will!!" She lunged, and Shinji only just barely caught hold of her in time. "Lemme go, Third! She's asking for it!" Asuka raged, and indeed, Rei was asking for it.

"Yes, let her go, Shinji," Rei hiccuped. She had switched her 'stance' so she was 'facing' Asuka... and... oh what the hell. She spasmed on the floor like she was dying of a siezure, but she ended up kind of looking at Asuka, and one of her hands might have flipped off the redhead, though it was hard to tell. In case you're wondering, she was executing the Aggressive Stance of the Second Form of Drunken Monkey, which was her style's actual name.

The only reason Shinji was holding Asuka back was because he wanted to kill the girl himself, not watch someone else do it. Plus, she was kind of soft, and... at this point Asuka realized the direction Shinji's mind had taken, and she elbowed him in the sternum, while at the same time blushing a scarlet red.

"Alright, you two are officially starting to piss me off!" she yelled, her arms crossed in front of her, one finger pointing at Shinji, and the other finger pointing at Rei.

At that moment, from the parking lot outside there came a noise that defies description. The closest thing would probably be a piercing atonal mixture of caterwauling and yodeling. The sound was abruptly cut off, and several seconds later Misato's voice cut through the blessed silence that had followed the previous racket.

"Shiiiiin-chaaaaan! We-gotta-go-to-NERV-so-get-your-butt-down-here!" There was a pause of about an eighth of a second, which was probably her maximum attention span. "Don't make me drive up there! You-know-I'll-do-it!!"

Meanwhile, Rei's phone was still issuing the 'Hallelujah Chorus' which was pissing Asuka off to no end. Finally, something inside the red-head's psyche frayed and snapped, and her next eight words caused the twitching Rei to pause momentarily.

"Rabid Squirrel: Secret Technique -- Rip Your Face Off!" With an ear-curdling screech she launched herself at the quivering albino.

_I was unaware she knew such a fighting style,_ Rei thought, and then it was on. The two fighters were nothing but a blur of red and a streak of blue, and Shinji was stunned into motionlessness. Too late, he remembered Misato, and that was only because of the window-rattling clatter of the woman reving her motor deep into the red.

_Oh shit..!_ Shinji thought as blue and red hair began to drift lazily through the air. The whole building shuddered on its foundation, and Shinji ran to the window with his emergency-rappel kit. Misato's car was gone, however, and he wondered if it would be better to rappel down anyway. There was another shudder, this time much closer and beneath them, and the two fighters paused, Rei's hand on Asuka's throat, Asuka holding on to Rei's hair with one hand, and pulling on the girl's cheek with the other. There was an ominous 'ding' which Shinji knew had to be the elevator, and he immediately went fetal, bracing himself.

There was a sudden roar of an engine, and Misato's blue coupe burst through the wall scattering chairs and desks around. The passenger side door was simply missing, and the raven-haired woman spun the vehicle with deadly accuracy, first scooping up the two fighters, and then reversing the spin in time to pick up Shinji before smashing through the opposite wall out into open space. The drag-chute deployed, stabilizing the car in the air so it was facing forward, and the engine was just hitting max-RPMs as the wheels kissed the pavement. Shinji, Rei, and Asuka were equal shades of white as they sat huddled in the passenger seat, and they were clutching each other desperately. The three of them almost immediately passed out, Shinji and Rei from their previous injuries, and Asuka because she didn't want to be alone with Misato.

When the ancient teacher walked into the disaster zone that was his classroom, he found a military-grade throwing-knife embedded into the door-frame, with a note affixed. The only possible explanation was that Misato had thrown it on her way through the classroom. The note said simply, 'NERV will reimburse you, Sensei.' The wizened old man smiled a little, as if at a memory from long ago. _I see my former pupil is as vivacious as ever._ He looked around, and found Hikari tending to the wounded and dragging the twisted remains of several desks out of the way.

"Excellent job, Horaki. We'll begin class in ten minutes."

Hikari gave the old man a grateful smile. _He's being generous today,_ she thought as she began to set up an emergency triage station in the corner of the room away from the fires.

* * *

Author's Notes: Misato Rocks.

Also, dear me, I can already feel it and it tickles my bones, but the Ancient Teacher, that dull boring old man in the anime, is going to become an actual honest-to-goodness minor character in this fic, complete with cool background


	5. Angels Like Their Legs III

Author's Notes: Pyro – sadly I can't take credit for those names, my boss is a riot. I've been waiting for some way to use them :-p

GlAssbOy – heh, yeah, it's interesting that my funny explanation from chapter one (Shinji strangled Asuka because she wouldn't go out with him) is probably pretty close to the truth.

A. Nonymous – Yes. The ding ;-) hah, to tell you the truth I'd forgotten completely about those old Mr. Koolaid man comics, hehe

* * *

Chapter 5 -- Pactio!

Shinji awoke to a familiar ceiling._ This is getting vaguely annoying,_ he thought with a sigh as he stared up at the blank curving wall of the entry plug.

_Obligatory Hallucination/Flashback_

"_Quickly Captain, he's waking up!" Gendo pushed Misato along, who was struggling to carry all three Children. Ritsuko looked up from her clipboard._

"_Why do we go through this every time?" she asked offhandedly._

"_Because the boy hates to pilot!" Gendo huffed. "If I hadn't been there when he popped out, I'd swear he wasn't my biological child..."_

_End Obligatory_

Shinji shook his head slightly, clearing it of the muzziness and cobwebs.

"...because I'm the pilot, that's why!" Rei's exasperated voice drew him back to reality. She was arguing with an ethereal Naoko, who was apparently the soul of Unit-00.

"I don't care if you're God herself," Naoko snapped. "Until my fool of a daughter binds me properly, I'm going to make your piloting experience a living hell!"

"...guuuuh!" Rei pounded the pistol-grip controls in frustration. "The nerve of that woman!" she griped in frustration. Then she jumped slightly, noticing for the first time that Shinji was awake. "...sorry about that," she said, schooling her features into a more Rei-like neutral expression.

"...oh, no. ...umm, that's okay," he mumbled, wondering at this new facet of Rei. His gaze slid over to Asuka, and his hands twitched automatically, but she was already stirring and mumbling sleepily, so it was too late to make any kind of attempt on her life.

"Pilot Ikari," Rei began, and he turned at her formal use of his name. "...er, would you mind piloting? After all, I drove your Eva, so it's only fair to return the favor." Shinji paused momentarily, but his spinelessness overcame his clone-fear (spinelessness is a powerful force, as odd as that sounds).

"..o-okay."

Rei climbed from the pilot's chair in relief, nodding her thanks as they passed by in the enclosed tube to trade places. _Sorry about this, Pilot Ikari, but I don't think I could've taken another round of 'ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall.'_ The woman sang it off-key, and emphasized the words improperly, and on top of that she sometimes skipped numbers. It was enough to drive the intensely logical Rei into an insane gibbering wreck. The only good thing she had gotten from the infuriating woman was a more believable 'Drunken Monkey' imitation (all she had to do to bring her self to a twitching wreck was think about that damned song).

"Launch'im! Launchim-launchim-launchim!!" Misato's voice shrilled through the plug, and the Eva was propelled to the surface.

"What th'heck are we doing in here anyway?" Shinji heard Asuka ask Rei as he settled himself into the seat. "What about Shinji's Eva?"

"Unit-01 is in traction," was Rei's response.

"Why?"

"Misato."

"Ah."

No more explanation was required.

Shinji's vision cleared, and he wondered what battling in Rei's Eva would be like. Especially against the tentacle-rape monster he knew Shamshel to be. And the fact that Touji and Kensuke were probably out there. He gingerly caressed the pistol-grip controls, and jumped slightly when Naoko's blushing form appeared before him.

"...oh, how forward," she murmured, and he jerked his hands away from the controls in embarrassment. "Hey, don't stop now, big boy," she purred, climbing onto his lap as he struggled desperately to slide out of the seat. It may be interesting to note that Naoko was not really there. She was merely holographing her image into the entry-plug, and adjusting the density and pressure of portions of the LCL to simulate her presence.

"...what the heck?!" Asuka's face shifted between shock and disgust.

"How odd," Rei said thoughtfully, as her Eva's soul proceeded to molest the boy.

"Um, excuse me..." Shamshel tapped Unit-00 on the shoulder. "I'm sorry to bother you, but you've given my brother a complex," the Angel gestured over its shoulder to where Sachiel was huddled peeking around a building. "All he does now is go on and on about his legs, and..."

"What?!" Naoko looked over her shoulder at the Angel. "...listen, Tentacles,"

"Shamshel."

"...Shammy," Naoko continued dismissively. "I don't know what you're talking about, but," the woman took a moment to place a firm hand on Shinji's shoulder, pushing him back down into the seat.

"...madam, could you atleast pay attention? My brother had always been the twitchy type, and I'm just trying..."

"Listen, dipwad! I don't care about your name or your problems. This here," she indicated Shinji's struggling form, "is the first hunk of manflesh I've had since I got shoved into this contraption, and..."

"Madam, you're being entirely unreasonable!" Shamshel exclaimed, his tentacles writhing crazily. Naoko caught one of them in Unit-00's fist, eliciting a surprised yelp from the creature.

"Wave these things around in my face one more time," she intoned, "...and I'll put them where the sun don't shine!"

"Is that a threat??" Shamshel roared. With a nasty sounding rip and a quick shove, Naoko gave him his answer. There was a stunned moment of silence, and then a bunch of screaming and running in circles.

"Brother??" Sachiel stepped around the building, shock on his 'face.' Naoko drew her prog knife, running her finger up and down its slowly humming surface. Sachiel paled and drew back slightly.

"...boo!" the woman stamped the Eva's foot down and made a sudden gesture towards the Angel.

The poor creature almost jumped out of its skin and promptly fled the area screaming "my-legs-my-legs-my-legs!"

"Now, boy, where were we?"

Before things got too far along, Shinji remembered that he controlled the resets, and he sent everyone back to the beginning of the battle.

* * *

The two Angels (who were in the resets by their very nature) took one look at the menacing orange robot and took off screaming, running into each other, the buildings around them, and whatever else was in their path as they escaped. Touji and Kensuke (who were filming the scene on a small hillock, and who were not in the resets) were quite disappointed. Or atleast Kensuke was disappointed, since from his perspective, the Eva and Angels had approached one another, and then the Angels had fled screaming.

"That was astonishingly dull," the boy muttered, looking through his viewfinder at the Angel's retreating forms.

"D-d-d-dull?" Touji stuttered. "They almost ran right over us just now!"

"Shinji must have a very boring job," the otaku muttered. "All he does is walk out and scare away the Angels when they come near."

* * *

Shinji, in fact, would not have agreed with Kensuke. At the moment, the boy was huddled in the rear of Unit-00's entry plug, shivering slightly.

"I do not suppose," Rei wondered, "that you would be willing to pilot again?"

"...n-n-n-n-n-"

She turned back around in the plug-seat with a sad little sigh. "Ninety-nine-bottles-of-beer it is, then."

Atleast it was a short walk back to the entry point.

* * *

A nice little family was in the process of moving out of the apartment next to Misato's.

"Mother, why do we have to leave?" the child wailed.

"Hush, honey, it must be fate that we have to move. I'm sure we'll be able to find a better place elsewhere."

And in fact it was Fate that they had to move. Mana had strummed a jaunty tune on her guiter and gotten the family evicted so she could move in beside Shinji. Oddly enough, Rei had been forced to move into Shinji's apartment complex as well. On their way out of the city, Sachiel and Shamshel had stumbled into her apartment, and when a multi-story giant stumbles into your apartment, it's quite a bit different than when a drunken family member stumbles into your apartment. Okay, maybe not _that_ different, but you get the point. Asuka, too, moved into the same apartment complex ("If the First is moving in, I'm sure as hell not leaving you two alone together!"). In any case, the four were making their way back to the apartment complex when Rei remembered.

"Oh! By the way, Shinji, I want my artifact..."

It took the boy a moment to remember what she was talking about, and in that time Kamo had drawn the magic circle on the ground.

"Good, now..." Rei found herself rudely shoved into a tree.

"First I want to try for a different artifact myself!" Mana exclaimed, tearing up her 'guitar pick' card.

"...dammit!" Kamo screamed, holding his paws before his face in frustration.

Mana snatched the boy before he could argue, and lip-locked him.

* * *

Meanwhile, Misato, who had been vibrating around the house doing various chores, came to a stop. A couple of hairs in her bangs twanged upwards. _Shin-chan?_ She bounced out onto the deck and looked over the edge in time to see Mana pull away from Shinji and scrutinize the Tarot card that had just appeared. Misato's face broke into a wide grin, her tongue sticking out from the side slightly, as she saw the card 'poof' into a guitar clip.

"Ah!" Mana exclaimed, as Misato bungee-jumped down to the ground, cutting the cord just as her feet touched. "This could be useful..."

"Alright," Rei huffed, "You got your card. Now, Shinji, your lips are mi-"

Misato hit Shinji like a human torpedo. "SHIN-CHAN-MMMMMMMMM...!" Their lips connected as they both slid along the ground digging a furrow for several hundred feet. "...soft-lips-soft-lips-soft-lips..." she murmured as she sat on the stunned boy's chest and looked at her card from several angles. Her eyes lit up dangerously as she finally recognized what the picture on the card represented, and she leapt off Shinji's chest shaking the card furiously. "C'mon-cmon-gimme-gimme-gimme!" her arm blurred almost into invisibility as she shook the card back and forth.

Shinji had just picked himself up off the ground when the card 'poofed' into a yellow Lamborghini Diablo, and Misato was suddenly wearing a hot skimpy blue number that would've made Kaji faint. "...hehehehehehehe!" the raven-haired woman vibrated around the car several times, patting it lovingly, and then she pulled Shinji's head to her chest. "Thanks-Shin-chan-you're-the-greatest!"

"...mmm-welcome?" he mumbled, his eyes crossing as he inadvertently looked down her cleavage.

"Such-a-_naughty_-boy!" Misato shrieked, blushing furiously. "Let's-go-for-a-ride!" And so saying, she chucked the boy into the car, jumped in after him, and the Lambo patched out, tires and engine (and Shinji) screaming. The three girls ran up just in time to see the yellow super-car vanish into the distance.

"...my...lips..." Rei's expression was quite sad, her arm reaching out towards Shinji's retreating form.

Several seconds later there was a horrible sounding crash, followed by several smaller bangs and clatters. Misato's distant yell was quite audible. "...hahahahaha! It regenerates! Awesome!" followed by more smashing and several nasty crunching sounds.

"Mein Gott, what have we done?" Asuka murmured.

* * *

Author's Notes: Incidentally, if you're wondering about the 'regenerating' car, Misato is referring to how the artifacts work. If they are broken (Nodoka's book being turned to stone in the manga, for instance) they can be restored by returning them to card form and then calling them out again.


	6. May the Charm be with you

Chapter 6 – May the Charm be with you

Post-Third-Impact

Shinji sat up on the beach as the souls of humanity lapped quietly against the sand a few feet away. He leaned back with a sigh, placing his hands behind his head. _Ah, a little peace and..._ Turning his eyes upward he caught a glimpse of Lilith on her cross and almost jumped out of her skin.

"WAAH! ...oh, Lilith," he murmured, picking himself up sheepishly. "I thought I was alone..."

"You'll never be alone as long as I'm around!" she beamed. "...um, let me down?"

"...oh, right." Sighing a little, the boy freed her from her cross with a twang. _Wait, 'twang'?_ The twanging continued, and he finally noticed Mana tuning her guitar. "...hmph," the boy groused, "I thought I was in control here. Might as well bring _everybody..._"

The other girls appeared with a flash of light.

"...no, Hikari, I'm telling you there's nothing between me and that idiot Shin-AAH! What the hell, Third?!" Asuka desperately looked around regaining her bearings and calming a little, then flying into another panic. "Wait, is Misato here??"

"Asuka, even I wouldn't be so stupid as to bring her here," Shinji said in a rare moment of courage. He did not notice that he happened to be walking into a magic circle.

"Oh, right, HEY! Since when do you talk to me like that??" she shrieked, spots of pink just barely showing on her cheeks. _Verdammt! I'm blushing!_ She turned away furiously so the boy wouldn't see. Shinji was, of course, utterly oblivious.

"...er, sorry," he mumbled, as Rei sidled closer.

"Dear Gott, what's with all the apologies?!" Asuka screeched, hiding her face with one arm and backhanding the boy with the other. Shinji flopped over into a heap, and Rei, who had just closed her eyes and quickly leaned in, fell over him suddenly and got nothing but a mouthful of sand. The two girls ended up looking daggers at each other.

Mana, meanwhile, had finished tuning her guitar. Setting her practiced hands to the strings, she drew from the instrument a haunting melody of such power and beauty that everyone on the beach paused momentarily. After using her ethereal senses to check that the music had done its job out in the real world, she put the instrument away.

"That was beautiful," Shinji said, and Mana smiled, preparing a fake blush for the boy. The side of her mouth developed a tic when the blush turned real. _No! This isn't possible,_ she thought desperately, turning away in embarrassment. Asuka began to snarl, and Rei gave another of her sad little sighs. In order to forestall the coming bloodbath, Shinji sent them all back to reality.

* * *

Gendo looked up from his desk, frowning suddenly. _I sense a disturbance in the Charm,_ he thought. _As if a multitude of women had suddenly cried out and swooned._ He set his pen down, the report in front of him forgotten. _Could my son have managed to activate his nascent talent?_ He reached over and pushed a button, waiting as a small hologram of the back of a chair popped into existence. The chair slowly turned around, revealing... Chairman Kihl. In a worn-looking robe that mostly obscured his face.

"He is nearby, and has grown strong in the Charm," Gendo intoned.

"The boy?" Kihl asked, distrust in his voice.

"I have felt him," Gendo insisted.

"Strange that I have not," the Chairman said with a piercing gaze. After a few moments of silence, the man's gutteral voice continued. "You will bring him to me. I have foreseen it..."

"Yes, my Master."

* * *

Misato stepped out of the lobby and into the parking lot of her apartment complex still wearing her sleeping shorts and shirt. This particular t-shirt was themed after one of her favorite TV shows, and on the front were the two words 'Disco Stu.' She reached inside her cleavage for her Tarot card which she flicked into an empty area of the parking lot. The card spun through the air and stuck into a crack in the pavement, and her Precious appeared in a flash of light. _Disco Stu may not advertise, but I'm not Disco Stu,_ she thought happily. The vanity plate on the back of the super-car now read 'SATO ROX' and she had changed the color scheme to midnight black with yellow-orange flames running down the sides. Glancing down in satisfaction, she noted that the Goth-loli outfit she had registered was as fetching as she had hoped, especially when she stood next to her Precious. _Must thank the boy. Must-thank-the-boy-very-thoroughly!_

"Misato-says-open!" she exclaimed, and she began to vibrate happily as the driver-side scissor door slid up noiselessly. "...hehehehehehe!"

* * *

Shinji and his entourage walked down the sidewalk on the way to school, and the air was filled with bickering.

"Schiesse! Why is everyone clustered around Shinji??" Asuka griped.

"No one asked you to come, Sohryu," Rei said in a quiet but firm voice. "...and did you just call him by his name?"

"No!!" Asuka backpedaled, desperately suppressing the blush that was starting to creep onto her face. "...M-Mana, what are _you_ doing here??"

"I go where I will," the girl replied nonchalantly, shifting her guitar case on her back and trying not to look at Shinji. The three girls eyed each other warily, and moved closer to the boy as they walked along. Shinji began to hum a little tune, and wondered at his sudden cheerfulness. He was usually depressed at this time of day, watching the other small groups of students walking merrily to school.

"IDIOT!" all three girls hit him on the head, and he fell into a heap on the ground.

"Sorry, sorry! What'd I do?" he asked, smiling nervously.

"Pilot Ikari, are you alright?" Rei bent over the boy and ended up 'tripping' and falling on top of him and into his arms. Her cheeks tinged pink. "...I-I think you owe me my artifact, Pilot Ikar-"

"What??" Asuka screeched, dragging the girl off him, as several windows shattered in the distance. "Don't try to play that off as an accident!"

"What are you two doing?" Mana asked suspiciously, and the three of them got into a scuffle as Shinji attempted to edge away.

"Oh no you don't!" the three of the yelled, and he broke into a run as they gave chase.

_How did it turn into this?_ He thought frantically, wondering if he would be able to make it to school, and possible safety.

_Ah! _Rei thought, _He's heading right for the..._

_...magic circle! _Asuka finished the thought. Neither knew of the other's plan, and Kamo had been a very busy little ermine indeed. Both of them put on a burst of speed, and the three Children met right at the magic circle.

_Bingo!_ Kamo crowed from where he sat in the bushes watching. _Wait..._

No one had even noticed the distant engine whine that had very quickly risen in volume. "Shin-chan-want-a-ride?-of-course-you-do!" (SNATCH) The Lambo's brake lights had not even flickered.

_Has the Third's mouth gotten a little smaller?_ Asuka wondered.

_I do not recall Pilot Ikari's hair being this long,_ Rei noted carefully.

Both girls opened their eyes.

The twin scream could be heard for miles around, and Kamo was propelled from his bush by a massive nose-bleed.

* * *

Shinji did not even have time to worry about any kind of uncomfortable silence, because Misato's super-car ate up the miles almost as fast as it ate up the gas. Or _would_ have eaten up the gas, anyway. "-no-need-to-buy-gas,-no-need-to-change-the-oil,-it-all-just-takes-care-of-itself!-If-only-men-were-like-that!-Oh-we're-here,-thanks-again-Shin-chan-MMMMMMMMM!"

"MMPHFFffflfhphf-wait!" The boy put both hands over his lips, which for the moment were vibrating in tune with Misato's, "M-M-M-Misato, m-m-my door is lock- AAAH! SLOW DOW-" Before he could complain further, she grabbed his collar and cheerily fired him out the open driver's side window.

For the precious moments of peace during which he was flying through the air, Shinji contemplated his situation. His eyes snapped open as he impacted something soft, and he barely had time to brace himself before he body-slammed the brick facade of the school building. _Why is the building so soft?_ He focused his eyes and found that he was forehead-to-forehead with Hikari, his hands braced against the wall, trapping her against his body. "...h-hi?" he managed to gasp as he regained his breath.

Her entire face was rapidly becoming a deep lavender as she looked into his suddenly entrancing orbs. "...n-n-nuh-nn... AAAAAAUUUUUUU!!" She slipped around him and fled down the street blindly. _I like Touji not Shinji, I like Touji not Shinji, I like-_ She slammed right into Asuka, bowling them both over into a tangled heap in the sidewalk. Kamo, who was just now tottering into view after his previous abrupt journey, flew off into the bushes again in a fresh shower of nose-bleeding at the sight of the two blushing girls tangled up in each other.

Thus, Hikari Horaki joined the ranks of the Shinji-smitten, and thus began what eventually became known as the Longest Day.

* * *

Author's Notes: glAssbOy – Shinji's danger level: approaching critical

Popkov – Warning: story may contain elements of Negima

Pyro – For the love of God that Discordia thing was the strangest fiction I've ever read! lol


	7. May the Charm be with you II

Author's Notes: Pyro – Negima = A Manga (a good one, and quite long I might add) Ne-gi-ma, or Ne-gi, Negi Springfield, the main character. Negima, short for Negi Magi, or Mage, which is what Negi is. Ne-(readers begin to wale on author with lead pipe)

Yes, Mana is from Girlfriend of Steel, but in this story of course Fate has simply taken her appearance. Technically speaking, the real Mana might still be out there. That would be an odd meeting.

(skip this next part if you want)

GlAssbOy – eh, it's not really writer's block per-se, it's that I can't write on Love Hina at the moment. The inspiration just isn't there. I know where I want to go, but it would be a terrible struggle to write, and the story would suffer. Jeez, I sound like I'm whining. In any case, the humorous way to put it is this. Rei was my muse for Redux. Naru is my muse for the Love Hina stories. Misato (as I have written her) is my muse for this story. When I started the two Love Hina stories, Naru started beating on Rei, which is why the final chapter for Redux was such a terrible pain to write (even though it was my favorite chapter). Then, Naru was quite miffed that I toughed it out and ignored her to finish Redux (I hate leaving things hanging so close to the end). Then, Insane Misato came on the scene, and powerful as Naru is, you just don't mess with Misato. I haven't come near to expounding her full character, but even as I have written her so far, I'm sure you can see that she's basically an incarnation of one of the frikken Chaos Gods or something. Well, not really, but at her level, when you get down to it, there's not much difference.

(end skip)

* * *

Chapter 7 – The Longest Day

The Longest Day began innocuously enough with Misato.

"Dammit!" Gendo roared, his fist coming down upon the picture the Section Two agent had laid on his desk. Misato had used her Lambo's tires to painstakingly render a beautifully detailed picture of Gendo in the classic Doctor Evil pose, with little finger and everything. In the middle of the main parking lot. In fact, the little finger had been carefully placed directly over Gendo's preferred parking spot. "How did she do it??" he demanded.

"She's got some hot super-car now, sir," the sweating Senior Agent answered hastily. "If she were in her old Alpine, we would have caught her for sure if she'd tried something this detailed, even with those damned drifter tires," the man said placatingly. "Still, if I may say so, sir, she really captured your aura of command, especially with the subtle arch of your brow, and..."

"Out!!" roared Gendo, "All of you get out of my sight!" The agents fled like scared rabbits.

* * *

Class was not due to start for fifteen minutes yet, and Shinji's entire entourage had basically come to grips and agreed that the situation was desperate, and that special exemptions were in order. All this meant was that they all called a truce and agreed to try not to kill each other until the crisis was resolved. Hikari stood in a magic circle looking rather embarrassed, and Shinji was hovering over his flock trying to keep order. Mana was standing to one side, too engrossed in trying to sort out her own feelings to really argue, but Asuka and Rei were filling in for her quite well.

"Look, she's my best friend," Asuka tried to explain. The others found it quite odd that the jealous and possessive redhead was taking the girl's side. "I just don't want to see her hurt. She's the Class Rep, and we can't have her moping around. If she shirks her duties, it'll only make her feel worse..."

Rei fumed in silence, and the only outward sign that slipped passed her usual stoic 'Rei' expression was a slight eyebrow-twitch every now and then. "...my...kiss," she said softly, and Asuka colored slightly before forcing down her anger. "My artifact..." Rei mumbled, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Are you sure she... I mean..." Rei could not complete the question.

Asuka pushed Shinji over next to Hikari, who averted her head. "Hikari, look at him," Asuka said firmly, trying to hold her voice steady. The girl looked over, and her eyes found Shinji's. It was obvious she was trying to hold down her feelings, but a blush rose in her cheeks, and after several seconds of torture, her eyes began to water.

"Yeah, she's got it bad," Mana said quietly, grinning just a little.

Rei watched this spectacle in silence, and after perhaps half a minute a single tear slipped down her cheek, and she turned aside swiping it away quickly. "Fine." When she turned around again, her face was the usual blank mask they all knew.

Shinji stepped into the circle, and their eyes met again. Hikari looked away, her cheeks a deep pink. "Look, Hikari... I..." Shinji began, and Asuka found herself gagging in disgust and desperately wanting it at the same time. It was enough to send her anger sky high, and yet she was honor-bound to wait, atleast for a few more moments.

"All we have to do is kiss, right?" Hikari said, her voice quavering slightly as she again tried to look him in the eyes. Again she was forced to break her gaze, her cheeks having gone a much deeper shade of crimson.

"...y-yeah."

He started to lean forward, and she turned at the same time to face him. After several more false starts, she took the initiative and leaned forward suddenly putting her lips to his. Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief. In truth, more than one had expected an... incident. And that was when Hikari lost it. Shuddering ever so slightly the girl tilted her head, brought her arms up around Shinji's neck, molded her body to his, and let out a piteously muffled moan of intense desire. Her entire face and neck began to flush, and it was obvious the kiss had turned extremely adult. As for poor Shinji, well, there was simply not a good response to the situation (other than to enjoy it, I guess). He was a virile male, after all. If he responded, the other girls would take action. If he didn't, they would take insult. In the end, the action he chose was pure Shinji. He hesitated, meandered, obviously tried to hold himself back, and then his hands drifted to Hikari's waist. Their tongues... drifted. By this point Asuka now found her self gagging and wanting it, while at the same time harboring the desperate desire to kill Shinji and then herself.

Rei could do nothing but stare and point. "I-I-I-I know that... tongue. Tongue... is involved... I-I-"

In the end it turned out to be Mana that snapped. Shaking with barely controlled rage, she drove Hikari off of Shinji with her guitar, and then proceeded to wale on Asuka and Rei just to relieve her pent-up stress. Asuka went Rabid Squirrel on her ass, relieved her of her guitar, and proceeded to wale on the First Child. The First went Drunken Monkey, fell on the floor into an extremely violent twitching fit, and proceeded to wale on _everyone's_ ass.

Meanwhile, Hikari (who had only been beaten in passing) bent down and retrieved her Tarot card. She recognized the picture on it immediately, and gestured for Shinji to come over and look at it. He stepped over, much relieved that she didn't immediately go into a blushing fit. The kiss had apparently relieved most of the issue for the moment. He looked at her card, and immediately covered his mouth to hide the grin.

"Should I do it?" she asked him.

"You don't need my permission, Class Representative," he answered, putting slight emphasis on the last two words.

She held the card to her chest and closed her eyes. One flash of light later, she was dressed up in a perfectly pressed female drill-sergeant's dress uniform. There was not a crease out of place, nor was there the tiniest spot on the pristine and perfect outfit. In her hands was the rod of punishment, necessary for keeping order in a busy classroom or a misbehaving harem, the stun baton. The two-foot-long rod was sleek, black, and reeked of lethality. At one end was a comfortable looking hand-grip, and at the other were two innocuous-looking round pieces of metal which encircled the baton. The three fighters did not even miss a beat or pause in their scuffle, and Hikari's Class Rep instincts kicked in. Her eyebrows drew down, and she shrilled out a command. "All right, that's enough!"

The fighters paused momentarily, long enough to recognize Hikari's voice, then resumed their battle. Hikari did not waste any time on further warnings, nor did she hesitate. Without unnecessary movements or force, she brought the baton down on Asuka's neck, and with a blue hum and lots of nasty popping the girl dropped like a stone to the floor. Rei twitched in Hikari's direction, and though the Class Rep had no martial arts experience, she knew a threat when she saw one. Rei managed to dodge the baton's first swing, but all Hikari had to do was get one touch. Rei was soon a twitching mass on the floor, and this time it wasn't because she was using her Drunken-Monkey-Fu. Mana (who by this time had retrieved her guitar) squared off against Hikari, and the Class Rep pulled no punches.

"You're new to the school, so I'll give you an extra warning," she said, her voice firm. "One wrong move and I'll break that toy of yours, and then I'll break you." Her voice oozed confidence and authority, and she thumbed the baton just for effect. Electricity crawled all over the business end of the Rod of Punishment, amidst a horrid welter of crackles and pops.

There were no more incidents.

* * *

After some discussion (when the effects of the Rod of Discipline wore off) the girls agreed that Shinji was a very dangerous person, and that eye contact between him and other girls had to be strictly forbidden, atleast as much as possible. It was near unanimous that eye contact was what did it. 'Those eyes,' Hikari had said dreamily, zoning out, until Asuka had snapped her fingers rapidly in front of the girl's face, and then come near to snapping her neck. And so Shinji found himself sitting in front of the Class Rep, Rei to his left, Asuka to his right, and Mana in front of him, all of them surreptitiously keeping watch on Shinji and those around him.

By the time class started, Hikari had registered what would become her main outfit. It was, quite simply, her school uniform. Now she by nature was a perfectionist, and always made sure she was immaculate before coming to class. But the artifact's outfit generator made sure every crease and seam was in perfect order, and that there was not a spot of dirt on her. In short, she became the Class Rep of Class Reps. Her stun baton was now retractable, and fit in her pocket. Always before she had carried with her an air of authority, but now it was obvious to anyone that she had the true aura of command. They say that absolute power corrupts absolutely, but there are exceptions to every rule. Hikari would probably be one of those exceptions. Still, though she did not have absolute power, in the classroom she now came very close.

The door slid aside to reveal the Ancient Professor.

"All rise!" Perfect unison slides and steps as everyone stood in respect. "Bow!" Again, near-military discipline. The Professor stood, momentarily stunned. Hikari turned to look at him, as if to say, 'the class is yours.' She wondered for a moment at his hesitance, then realized how the aura of the class had changed. There was a moment of recognition between their eyes, and her command aura was such that he almost fell under its sway. The old man found himself drawing on his inner discipline to keep hold of himself, and then Hikari realized what was happening. She retreated her aura, allowing him to naturally take over.

_Interesting,_ the old man thought. _Very interesting. Such a change, and so quickly._ He invoked his ethereal vision, and immediately saw through her outfit. Of course, since her registered outfit was the same as her school uniform, there were only subtle differences. A slight crease out of place here, a hem just barely too low there. It was so close he almost cracked a smile. _An artifact. And yet it's not truly the artifact's power that has done this. The artifact has merely strengthened her already powerful command aura, and given physical form to her boldness. Very interesting._

* * *

At lunch, Shinji and his flock passed through the halls. Touji and Kensuke were floored.

"He-he-he... took all the good ones," Touji stammered. "J-jeez, man, leave some for the rest of us..."

"...e-e-even the hot new transfer student!" Kensuke stuttered, referring to Mana. Shinji just smiled and shrugged.

Asuka continued to want to hug him and hurl at the same time. _I swear I'm going to make him a better man than this. If I have to live with this... insane desire for him, he's going to have to change._ She damned near jumped out of her skin when her phone emitted its cheerful German waltz. _I've got a serious case of nerves here,_ she thought as she pulled the phone from her purse. She happened to glance at Shinji and felt her heart thump. _Verdammt!_ She gritted her teeth as she fumbled to open the phone. _Maybe I should just kiss him._ She looked over at Hikari, who seemed calm. _No! Not yet..._ she opened the phone. "J-Ja?" Yammering. Silence. More yammering. "...o-okay. Kiss you lat-" she shut her eyes. She had meant to say 'see you later.' She threw the phone against the wall with a barely restrained shriek of fury, then stood there, trembling for a moment. After several seconds, she regained control of herself. "Shinji."

"Yes?"

"Could you back us up a few seconds and restore my phone?"

"...i-if I do that, Misato might notice..." She was in the resets, after all.

The fact that he thought of the ramifications like that only made her want him more, and hate herself for not being able to think clearly enough to remember such things herself. Not looking up, she stepped forward until she was directly in front of the boy. She took Shinji's head in her hands, and the other girls did not intervene, sensing this was similar to Hikari's situation, and needed rectifying.

"Kamo's not here, there's no magic circle." For once Shinji did not stutter, and this did not help Asuka's mental state.

"I don't care about the artifact, I just want to be able to think clearly." She managed to keep control of her voice. Shinji looked as if he was about to speak again, and she stopped him with a glance. Her blue orbs locked onto his own deep grey eyes. "Speak one more word, and I'll kill you." Her voice somehow managed to be like ice and carry warmth at the same time. "Enjoy this too much, and I'll kill you. Don't enjoy it enough, and I'll kill you." A touch of fire had entered her eyes. "Hell, I'll probably kill you anyway, just because..." He made the first move toward her lips, but she made quite sure she met him more than halfway. It was obvious she was desperately fighting her feelings, but color crept onto her cheeks, then down her neck. Finally she lost it even more spectacularly than Hikari, molded herself to him, and damned near climbed up the boy, all the while making noises one usually hears during a raging bear attack. Shinji managed to keep from enjoying it too much, and Rei finally beat Asuka off of him with a convenient lead pipe. There were mutual agreements all around to never speak of it again.

"Oh, yeah, Asuka, what was that phone call about?" Shinji asked, when he got his breath (and his tongue) back.

* * *

Author's Notes: Cliffie? Okay, I think I maybe went overboard ;-) or not. You decide. And the Longest Day has yet to truly begin. (deep menacing laughter)


	8. Rei's Love Potion Number Nine

Author's Notes: A. Nonymous – Good guess. See below

Pyro – Twins. Mmmm... ;-)

* * *

Chapter 8 – Rei's Love Potion Number Nine

Shinji-and-harem were deep inside NERV HQ and all was not merry. Asuka fumed, Mana sulked, and Hikari paced back and forth looking by turns both nervous and embarrassed. Shinji and Rei were currently ensconced in Unit-01, and this was not sitting well with those who were left out.

"Why couldn't I have gone in with-" Asuka began, then she paused, desperately tried to suppress a blush, and rephrased her question. "Don't you need me in there to boost the sync rating?" she asked Ritsuko in a sweet little voice that just did not sound right coming from the flamboyant redhead.

"Actually, that's the problem," the doctor answered. "Your sync ratio would push them past one hundred, and all we want to do is conduct a simple extended activation test on Unit-01." The word 'extended' caused a significant rise in the blood-pressures of all three girls.

"Wh-what about me?" Mana spoke without thinking, then clapped her hands over her mouth in horror.

"You're not even a pilot yet, Miss Kirishima," Ritsuko answered.

"...'yet'?" Asuka asked in a dangerous voice, and ever so slowly Mana began to reach for her guitar.

"Miss Kirishima is the designated pilot for Unit-03, which is being shipped here along with Unit-02," Ritsuko answered, blissfully unaware of the impending doomsday.

"When did that happen?" The air grew noticeably cooler with each word.

"A short time ago Unit-03's installation received a massive funding increase, a bunch of new personnel, and a mysterious order tripling all shifts, so we're getting it ahead of schedule." In fact, this was due to the haunting melody Mana had strummed upon her guitar back in Post-Third-Impact. Asuka glared suspiciously at the brunette, who put on her best 'innocent' look. Hikari began toying with her retracted stun-baton, and the two girls relented. The Class Rep felt as if she were abusing her authority, but she did not want to be thrown out of NERV on her first visit just because Asuka and Mana were in the middle of a love spat. In any case, none of them should have worried (atleast not yet), because an angsty little piece of fluff was currently taking place inside Unit-01.

* * *

Shinji was sitting to the right of the plug-seat, and Rei was sitting to the left, each in their suits, their eyes closed as the extended activation test continued.

"I-I apologize, Ayanami." Spots of pink appeared on her cheeks at his words. "...for treating you so badly, I mean."

"That is... okay, Pilot Ikari," she said softly. "Per... perhaps it is not a good idea after all." Her voice caught ever so slightly. "The artifact, that is," she said quickly.

"I, um..." Shinji had begun to feel quite terrible, especially considering how friendly he had been with the quiet blue-haired girl in the original time-line. She had been so lonely. They both had. He had undoubtedly hurt her with his clone-fear, which fortunately was almost completely gone with the recent crazy happenings.

"With my Angelic heritage, any artifact I get could be truly dangerous."

"You know... Ayanami... I kind of feel bad." Shinji pushed his index fingers together in an embarrassed way. "If... I'm causing strong feelings in you... I'll give you a kiss like I did Hikari. If it'll help..."

"No!" she said a little too quickly, also pushing her index fingers together. "I mean... it does not affect me like the others," she half-lied. It did not affect her as strongly, she being only part-human, but the effect was still there. "In truth, I feel things... for you... even without your strange ability," she said almost too softly for him to hear.

"I-I see," Shinji said, and they both fell silent, blushing furiously for a few moments. "...a-actually, if you want, we can... I mean, it's safe in here..." he fell silent because Rei had reached across and laid a finger on his lips. They both stood carefully and sat down on the plug-seat, sharing it, turning slightly to face each other. "...it's only fair," Shinji stuttered, "since you... actually like me, as opposed to..." he stopped, not wanting to say bad things about the other girls.

They both leaned in slightly, and their lips touched. All in all, this cute little scene might not even have been included in this fic were it not for the fact that unbeknownst to the both of them, they were not safe after all. Through his Magi-net connection, Kamo had hacked in and found out about the test, and the two people who would be in it. The magical rat had snuck in and drawn a magical circle on the bottom of the entry plug

As their lips touched, a Tarot card popped into existence above them and floated down to rest on Rei's sky-blue hair. The card face was innocuous enough, featuring an image of Rei in her plug-suit, one leg crossed behind the other in a cute little pose. One arm was behind her back, the other hand was blowing a kiss, and she was winking rather prettily. The caption above the picture was 'Love Potion Number Nine.' Thus, with a 'poof' and a flash of light, things suddenly changed without either of them knowing it.

Warm and giddy, they both pulled back, happy they had gotten their feelings out in the open. Remembering Hikari's and Asuka's relief, they both fully expected things to be more calm now that the tension had been relieved. And it was, until they opened their eyes and looked at each other. An almost-physical crackle of electricity passed between them, and they both froze.

Rei's hair which before had been cute and unkempt, was suddenly well-manicured, perfectly cut, and was now argent-purple at the fringes. Her porcelain skin had transformed as if she had been using all the proper cleansers and exfoliants all her life, and impossibly, she appeared to be wearing just a bare hint of make-up (which somehow was not running or smearing in the LCL). Shinji was frozen into speechlessness by her suddenly entrancing beauty, and Rei found herself completely vulnerable to his Charming grey orbs.

"A-A-Ayanami," Shinji stammered, slowly losing control of his speech faculties as he saw her plug-suit de-skin-tighten itself, "...wh-wh-why are you taking off your suit?"

"I-I-I am doing no such th-thing, Pilot Ikari," she replied, watching his suit come loose as well. In fact, they were undressing each other without being aware of it.

"Th-this isn't right, A-Ayanami," Shinji said, drawing closer to her as his face flushed red and his suit drifted down, trapping his arms.

"Y-y-you are right, Pilot Ikari, let us n-not do th-th-" her cheeks were a deep lavender, and her actions were directly contradicting her words. Time seemed to slow, and they both were shivering as they fought desperately against immense forces beyond their control. They managed to halt themselves bare millimeters from each other, neither of them daring to breathe as they looked into each other's eyes. Ever so slowly they lost track of where they were, and what they were fighting against, then Shinji took a breath due to lack of oxygen. This movement caused their lips to barely come into contact, and suddenly they both snapped and were all over each other.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the Reiquarium, a Rei opened her eyes, looking around.

* * *

Maya took a moment from her programming assignment to reach over and turn on a monitor and check on her two charges. What she saw caused her to develop a nosebleed of gargantuan proportions and pass out on the floor. Several minutes later Ritsuko happened to walk by and glance at the monitor while sipping her coffee. She spewed the coffee, went into a choking fit, experienced syncope, and fell onto the floor in a twitching heap. Forty minutes later when the experiment ended, the two pilots appeared at the doorway still dripping LCL, and three worried heads turned.

"h-hands...!" Hikari stuttered, pointing, and Shinji and Rei twitched slightly, releasing each others hands, not completely aware they had been joined.

"Her hair," Mana said in a small voice. "...h-her face..." Rei put a hand to her hair, blushing slightly.

"...w-we require a shower," she said, and the two of them walked quickly towards the changing rooms.

"J-just what the hell went on in there?" Asuka wondered, so shocked at the First's peaceful expression that she did not yell. The two guilty parties sped up, trying to ignore her, and her face reddened suddenly at where they were heading. "Hey!" the redhead shrieked, "You two can't go into the same shower!" They jumped, then split up, going to the men's and women's showers respectively.

Dark storm clouds were gathering rapidly, but at that moment Ramiel happened by, and Shinji and Rei breathed a sigh of relief as the alarms blared. Never had the boy been so happy to experience an Angel attack.


	9. Rei's Love Potion Number Nine II

Chapter 9 – Rei's Love Potion Number Nine II

Shinji came to himself in Unit-01's entry plug, his hands on the pistol-grip controls. He was comfortable, and things felt right, which was the first indicator that something was very wrong. _I'm in my Eva. I should be in pain. I don't like to pilot._ He felt a warm body against his, and took a deep breath. _Ayanami._ Her scent tickled his nostrils. She was sitting between his legs, and her hands were over his on the pistol-grip controls. He opened his eyes and caught sight of his mother standing in front of the plug seat, her arms crossed, a terrible look on her face as she glared out at the battle-site. She glanced back at him.

"Ah, good, you're up." Her face broke into a smile. "They keep complaining that I'm too brutal..." Outside, half the city was devastated, Shamshel was running into the distance (Sachiel in his arms), and Unit-01 had one of Sachiel's legs in its hands. Yui had apparently been beating the Angels senseless with it.

_Obligatory Humiliating Third-Person Flashback_

_Sachiel watched enviously as Ramiel laid waste to the wretched city in the distance. "Brother, let me control it for a little while," he begged._

"_Shut up!" Shamshel snapped, his tentacles manipulating the remote control almost maniacally. "This is personal!" He stabbed down on a button and in the distance Ramiel cut loose with its beam cannon, devastating another section of the city. "No one should have their tentacles ripped off and shoved up their a-"_

"_Please?? Just let me push the 'fire' button..."_

_And that was when the horrible purple Eva found their hiding place. The confounded machine ripped off Sachiel's leg and proceeded to beat the tar out of them with it._

_End Humiliating_

Shinji looked around at the ruined wasteland of Tokyo-3. _Hm, this isn't good..._

"Okay!" Asuka's voice over the comm. It sounded like she was struggling to keep control of the mike. "Shinji, reset things! I know how Ramiel is being controlled now!"

"What about Misato?" he asked.

"Yes-yes-you've-got-some-explaining-to-do!-But-first-save-the-city...the-precious-ruined-city!" he heard a choked sob, and knew things were bad. Misato _never_ cried.

He reset them all to the beginning of the battle.

* * *

A blip appeared on his radar overlay as Ramiel loomed in the distance, approaching Tokyo-3.

"That dot is where the control signals are coming from!" Asuka's voice again. This time they found the two Angels before Ramiel could even get to the city limits. Sachiel saw them coming and immediately began screaming and gibbering. Shamshel let out a pitiful-sounding shriek, threw Ramiel's remote control into the air and took off running, Sachiel behind him.

Unit-01 picked up the remote control and began to trudge back to the city. Shinji was dead tired, and wondered how long he'd been resetting. Then he happened to notice that Rei's hair still had purple highlights, and he remembered the real reason why he was tired. Forty minutes of reasons. "R-Rei, it's kind of d-distracting to have you in this form." He unconsciously nuzzled her neck, and saw the corner of her lips turn up.

"But Pilot Ikari, I have nowhere to store the card." It was an excuse if he ever heard one. "Allow me to pilot if you are unable..." she offered, and against his will, his hands began to drift to her chest. She shivered.

"...do-do you need your plug suit t-to pilot?" he asked.

"No."

He stripped her out of it.

"Now where were we..." He discovered he was still wearing his own suit. She rectified that situation, then sat back down in front of him, putting her hands on the pistol-grip controls. He tried to do the same, but his arms were wrapped around her stomach, and refused to obey his orders.

"Ayanami," he murmured into her neck helplessly. "Pay attention to me."

"I must pilot," she said as she shivered. "You pay attention to _me._" He decided that this wasn't very fair, and so with a monumental effort he brought an arm up, grasped her chin, and turned it so she was forced to look in his eyes.

"Wh-what are you doing, P-Pilot Ikar- Pilot- Pilot Ik-" her cheeks went lavender as she tried to resist his entrancing eyes.

"You can say my name, you know," he said, also struggling to keep control. Her 'make-up' was still perfect somehow, and he couldn't tear his gaze from her perfectly decorated eyes.

"Sh-Shin-Shinj-" Apparently she couldn't say that either. Their lips touched, and he swore he heard the crackle of electricity as she went crazy in his arms.

* * *

When next he came to himself, she was facing him in the seat, her arms and legs wrapped around him, their foreheads touching. "Th-this may... hurt later," she warned him. He could do no more than nod. He heard Yui giggle and titter in the background. She was apparently driving the Eva now, and she took the long way back to the city.

* * *

Another Rei opened her eyes in the Reiquarium.

* * *

He opened his eyes to find Rei in his arms, the both of them in his futon in Misato's apartment. The young pilot was no longer in 'Love Potion' form, for which he was at the same time grateful and disappointed. He resolved to be kinder to all the girls, now that he knew just a taste of what they went through constantly. Misato poked her head in the door.

"Oh-good-the-love-birds-are-up-hehehehehehehe!"

_This could be bad in so many ways,_ thought Shinji.

Fortunately, it was not. Or atleast not very. After all, if everything were perfect, there would be no story.

* * *

In Post-Third-Impact, there was much arguing and discord (not discordianism, the story contains enough of that already).

"Miss Misato told us how your Eva kept going berserk," Hikari said, looking at Shinji and Rei with both pity and perhaps a little bit of wanting it. Asuka and Mana looked distrustingly at the two of them, with absolutely no pity and a whole bunch of wanting it. Shinji, that is, not Rei. The girls did not swing that way (yet?).

_Your hair was different,_ Mana wanted to say, but she wasn't quite sure. The LCL could have obscured things, and made Rei's hair seem different. Asuka fumed in silence, almost preferring not to know for sure what had happened. She couldn't glare at Shinji because if she did she would want him more, and she couldn't glare at Rei because she didn't know how to handle the girl's content expression. Finally, she took the 'spoiled girl' route, and stole enough glances at the boy to get her cheeks flushed, then said in a shaky voice,

"I-I want my artifact, Third."

Shinji nodded and materialized Kamo, who apparently was in the middle of 'something.'

"...yes, yes, take it all off-AAAH!" the ermine's fur stood on end as it tried to regain its bearings. Hikari blushed and almost reached for her stun baton, but Mana stopped her ("you'll kill the poor creature." "No I won't, the baton's got varied power levels. I'm learning more about it." "Look, we already knew the creature was perverted..." and so the conversation went). Asuka grabbed the rat and tossed it into the sand.

"Draw." The rat drew. Asuka put her arms around the boy's neck, looked him in the eye until she was shivering, and then attached herself to him like a leech. Rei tilted her head to the side, trying to pick up the girl's technique, and Shinji frantically waved her off, thanking his lucky stars that it was not Asuka who had gotten the Love Potion card. Death-by-lovemaking, while sounding all nice and happy, is most probably not all that great. Shinji's hand must have accidentally brushed through her hair, because the redhead lost it very sloppily. Wrapping her legs around the boy's chest with enough force to nearly crack a rib, she began mewling noises into his mouth that sounded like an angry beaver. Asuka's card had been resting on her bangs for the last minute or so, and Mana took the opportunity to practice her guitar. She practiced it all over the redhead, who reluctantly released Shinji.

Panting heavily, Asuka glanced at her card with what she hoped was a nonchalant expression. Her face lit up before she could regain full control of her faculties, but she quickly schooled her features back to the usual bored/dangerous look. "...pshh, whatever," she said over her shoulder. Shinji got more happiness from that 'pshh, whatever' than he did from the multitudes of praise he had gotten in the original time-line whenever he killed an Angel.

The card showed a stunning picture of Asuka in her red plug-suit, one fist slammed up against the other palm, with a very wrathful look on her beautiful features. Above the picture were the words 'A10 Clips of Doom and Angst' with little arrows pointing to the clips on the girl's head. The card 'poofed' and Asuka stripped off her old clips, tossing them over her shoulder without a second thought. Indeed, each A10 clip had 'doom' printed on one side and 'angst' printed on the other. Thereafter, Asuka almost always wore the clips in the 'doom' position.

Misato vibrated over, picked up the dropped A10 clips (knowing how much they were worth, and how underfunded NERV was), and then proceeded to put Shinji's mind at ease. "Don't-worry-about-the-resets-I-trust-you-Shin-chan!-by-the-way-nice-harem-but-I'm-going-to-be-screwing-Kaji-hope-you-don't-mind-you're-just-not-my-type." Shinji nodded, hoping the other girls had not picked up on the word 'harem.' Just because something is true doesn't mean it should be shouted from the rooftops, and the three girls who might be offended also had potential to cause him great amounts of pain, each in their own way. He had doubted Misato was vulnerable to his Charm, and that could be for any number of reasons. The actual reason is quite arcane and-(Mana begins waling on author with guitar screaming "dammit, no infodumps! You'll ruin the plot!" (hehe there's a plot? -ouch- stoppit mana)).

While Asuka was putting on her Doom Clips, Hikari and Mana took Rei aside, ostensibly to make small talk (with Rei? Meh) but in reality to take a closer look at her hair ("and I swear she was wearing make-up!" Hikari whispered to Mana, who returned a disbelieving stare. The girl had just come from over an hour of soaking in LCL, so make-up seemed like an impossibility). During this time, Misato quietly vibrated over to Shinji and with a wink told him that if he crossed her she would tell the girls what he and Rei had been doing for forty minutes in that entry plug. He paled, and nodded. She smiled and vibrated. Everybody was happy (sort of).

* * *

Author's Notes: Pyro – more Rei waff. Love Potion Rei (sheds a tear)

glAssbOy – indeed. Soon Asuka shall receive her Evangelion and become more powerful than one could ever imagine. Oops, did I say that out loud? (heck, it's not like it's a secret) Prepare for a Mr. T beatdown.


	10. Doom is upon us

Author's Notes: Anonymous – actually, that's not _quite_ what I had in mind ;-) It has to do with her artifact. see below...

* * *

Chapter 10 – Doom is upon us

Gendo brooded in his office as Emperor Kihl droned on.

"...he will join us, or he will die," Kihl declared.

"Yes, my Master." Gendo considered his options. The boy would most likely join, after seeing the combined Charm power he and Kihl possessed. Between the three of them, they would have enough Charm to open a portal to Heaven and have an orgy the likes of which made Gendo's right eye twitch.

The door slid aside, and the Third Child walked in. "Shinji," Gendo said, "_I_ am your father."

"Um, I know," Shinji said, looking a little confused.

_Dammit! That sounded so much better when Vader said it,_ Gendo cursed. "Join me, and we will rule this planet as father and son!"

"I'll never join you," Shinji said coldly, thinking of what the man had done to Rei.

"So be it," Kihl said nastily, his hologram wavering into view on the desk. "The two of us will have to use our combined Charm to seal your powers, then. Get it?" he cackled maniacally. "Seal? SEELE?" Cackle cackle cackle.

"That kind of pun deserves the worst beat-down imaginable," Shinji said in disgust.

"Too bad you won't be able to give such a beat-down, boy!" Kihl continued to cackle.

"No, I won't," Shinji admitted. "But she will." He summoned Rei using his copy of her artifact card. She appeared in 'Love Potion' form, and Kihl froze.

"Impossible! She-AACK!" Rei went into a cute little pose, winked, blew him a kiss, and his heart exploded.

"Very impressive," Gendo intoned, reevaluating his son's progress. "Emperor Kihl was expecting a Charm attack, so he was unprepared for this. I am not." Gendo laughed rather nastily. "I, my dear boy," At that point, the Rei standing behind Gendo snapped his neck like a twig. A third Rei also stepped from the shadows.

"Thank you," Shinji said. "I'm not sure I could have taken any more of that evil laughter." Then he began drifting closer to the three Reis

"...er, sorry." Rei deactivated her Love Potion form and banished the other two Reis back to the Reiquarium.

"N-no problem, Shinji stuttered, both relieved and disappointed.

* * *

Ritsuko was watching all of this on a monitor.

"...oooh, completely unexpected," she exclaimed, clasping her hands together. "Shinji, you truly are a piece of work!" During the entire episode, she had been wearing dark glasses, and had been careful never to look into his eyes. She went to a deep cavernous section far below Terminal Dogma to activate another Gendo from the Gendoquarium. She paused, slobbering slightly at the sight of so many Gen-(AAAUUU! author runs away from the readers bearing pitchforks, and so decides not to be so descriptive in this section).

"...and that is my Ultimate Plan!" Ritsuko exclaimed to herself. "Is it not Glorious?? BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!" Ritsuko was actually as insane as Misato, just in a different way. They say that happy families are all alike, but unhappy families are each unhappy in their own way. Well, sane people are all alike, but insane people each worship Eris in their own psychotic way. In any case... (WHAT?! You people were the ones not wanting me to be so descriptive in this section. So I accidentally happened to cut out her plan. Your fault, not mine ;-) Runs from the pitchforks again).

* * *

Misato, Asuka, Touji, and Kensuke stood arguing with the Admiral of the fleet. They were getting nowhere, and Asuka was getting worried. Suddenly the door opened, and there was Kaji.

"Heeeey," Kaji did his best "Fonze" impersonation, standing in his usual I'm-a-stud stance in the doorway. Misato's head whipped around fast enough to cause the Carrier to change course slightly. Asuka looked at Kaji with a divided heart, and try as she might, she couldn't keep from morphing his face into Shinji's. _Verdammt!_ Frantic tears gathered in her eyes. _That idiot won't even let me have my dreams any more!_

"KajiKajiKajiKajiKajiKaji!!" Misato hit the man like a human torpedo, propelling them through the doorway. From the sounds as they fell down the stairs, there was a bunch of stripping, then a bunch of... questionable stuff. Asuka's face fell. _How would I even compete with that?_

* * *

Asuka faced Mana outside on the deck of the battleship that held their Evas, and neither of them were at all happy.

"Unit-03!" Mana yelled.

"Unit-02!" Asuka shrieked.

"Unit-_03_!" A porthole cracked.

"Unit-_02_!" The porthole shattered.

"Rabid Squirrel: Extreme Technique – Naru Punch!" Her fist lashed out impossibly fast, and Mana was propelled up into the ionosphere. Asuka looked up in satisfaction, her hands on her hips. She was just turning to leave when Mana came screaming back down, her guitar out, her hair flapping crazily, and her mouth set in a frightening snarl.

"Guitar Hero: Special Technique – Karaoke Beatdown!"

The ship nearly sank.

* * *

After rescuing the survivors, Ritsuko informed Asuka that her Eva was ready, and that Shinji was ready. Mana was ticked off, and reminded Ritsuko that she had won, and so deserved to pilot with Shinji. Ritsuko reminded Mana who was in charge, and of the fact that Unit-03 had never been activated before and most certainly was not ready for combat.

* * *

The entry plug of Unit-02 was charged with tension as the two pilots prepared for battle. Shinji had been careful to bring his own plug suit.

"Sit, Shinji, sit!." He looked back, and noticed that while she wore her usual confident smile, her eyes were slightly red as if she had been crying. He sat carefully, which only served to frustrate her.

"Oh, come on!" she said, her voice rising, but still far kinder than her usual shrieks. "Be more assertive, you're a man!" She pulled him back towards her till he was snug against her curves, taking his hands and putting them on the pistol-grip controls, then covering them with her own red-gloved hands. Shinji blushed. She synced. Her mother's hologram appeared in the plug, and Asuka desperately made eyebrow motions at her. "Oh, hello mother!" she said just a touch too cheerily.

Kyoko was blissfully oblivious. "Daughter, who is this young man?" She squeezed his upper arms, "Oh, so strong, and such a high sync ratio," she purred. Asuka's cheeks began to take on a pink shade.

"Mother...!" It wasn't quite a shriek, but all the warnings were there.

Kyoko put an arm around his shoulders, a hand on his chest, and leaned her head against his. "Oh, but daughter, surely you don't mind sharing!" The hologram was blushing.

_Horrifying Flashback_

_Asuka led Shinji across the deck towards the entry plug._

"_Wait, Asuka, I dropped my A10 clips!" He pulled his hand from her grasp, bent down, and retrieved them. Standing back up, he noticed he was standing beside Unit-02's head. He stood there for a moment, wondering why this Eva had four eyes, as opposed to his two and Rei's one. The Eva looked back at him (it could do nothing else, being immobile), and sweat-dropped. Shinji eyes widened, and he looked away quickly._

_End Horrifying_

Kyoko oozed onto the boy's lap.

"Mo_ther!_" the redhead shrieked. "Stop molesting my copilot!!" She beat her mother's hologram off of Shinji, then slid back in behind him. He could feel her shaking furiously.

* * *

Asuka's Progressive Lance had morphed horrifically into a massive serrated sword/spear conglomeration, and she was currently digging her way into Gaghiel's thick hide. The Angel was desperately swimming in the direction Kaji's aircraft had taken, knowing that the man had Adam's embryonic form with him. Shinji looked back as the fleet receded in the distance behind them. _Is this the power of Doom?_ he wondered. Then he heard Asuka crying.

"What an awful day," she whispered, continuing to dig into the Angel's hide.

"Please, madam," Gaghiel gasped, "I'm just trying to follow yon plane in the distance. Leave my precious flesh alone!"

Asuka ignored the Angel's plea. "Mana actually defeated me, and Misato and Kaji are... they're..." her whispered words drifted off. Shinji looked behind him in surprise. He had expected Asuka to be happy about him agreeing to pilot with her, or atleast try to throw herself on him, or something.

"Wait, that's," he looked up at the top of her head. "Asuka, your clips...!"

"Aren't they on the 'doom' setting?" Asuka asked, frantically feeling the top of her head. They were not, and in fact, Unit-02 (having left the fleet) was currently being completely powered by the redhead's concentrated angst. At this moment, Shinji's copy of the Love Potion card drifted from the pocket of his plug-suit and into Asuka's field of vision. She reached out a trembling hand and pulled the card closer, tears running from her eyes and dissipating in the LCL. Her Angst clips glowed, and there was a flash of light. Shinji turned around in surprise, assuming Asuka had de-synced accidentally, and this sealed his fate.

The redhead's hair shimmered in the LCL, its tips now a vibrant orange and frizzed out slightly, and impossibly the girl now wore bright red lipstick and a hint of mascara.

"Wh-what are you looking at, Th-Third?" she asked as he drifted helplessly closer. _Dear Gott, is he feeling what I've been feeling?_ Against her will she began to sympathize with the boy. _No! He's just being a pervert..._ She reached a hand out to stop him, and ended up accidentally stripping his suit off. "Th-Third, we n-need to t-talk..." He nodded frantically as they drifted closer. She reached up to make sure she still had her own suit on, and accidentally stripped it off as well. _Schiesse!_ She put out her arms shakily to push him away, and too late remembered that she was already zero-for-two in successfully controlling her actions. She struggled mightily for a few seconds as her disobedient arms wound their way around his neck. _Oh, the hell with it._ Their lips met, her hair splayed out in all directions from the crackle of electricity, and her brain promptly fried.

Unit-02 began to shift slightly, and the sounds from the entry plug were reminiscent of two raging bull-steers battling for dominance.

* * *

Asuka awoke in her apartment, and stretched luxuriously before turning back over and wrapping herself around her body pillow. _Just a few more minutes..._ The pillow shifted in her arms, moaning softly, and her eyes snapped open. Her resulting shriek was loud enough to wake the dead, and the next sound heard was the bathroom door being slammed and the cold water turned on full force in her shower.

* * *

Stumbling from the shower, wrapped in a sopping wet cold towel, she flung her bedroom door aside. It was empty. _A d-dream. That's all it was,_ her mind insisted. She checked thoroughly in all the placed the Third might be hiding, but found nothing. _Y-yeah, it was a tough battle, a-and I must've been delirious. Misato probably brought me back h-_ the thought died when she looked out her window.

Unit-02 was laid out face down some distance from the apartment complex, and looked as if it had dragged itself along the ground the last mile with its hands alone. Her ejected entry plug was embedded into the front facade of the apartment building right next to her deck, and there were LCL stains on the ground below.

A cheerful German waltz began to play, and she nearly jumped out of her towel. Scrambling around to find the phone, she froze when she saw the name flashing on the front display.

'M. Katsuragi.'

_...I'm sooo dead..._

* * *

Author's Notes: Pyro – Invader Zim FTW!


	11. Calm Before the Storm

Author's Notes: Dylan – Madness? This... is... EVA! (author is lynched for such a tired pun)

Pyro – either that or she is channeling one of the Chaos Gods.

GlAssbOy – You have the right to a pitchfork. One will be provided for you by the State if you do not have one ;-p

Where was Shinji? Fleeing for his life. As well he should. This is Asuka, after all. He's just lucky that (once again) he was the first to wake up.

* * *

Chapter 11 – Calm Before the Storm / Twins

Sachiel and Shamshel sat on the edge of the semi-active volcano, slouched back against a protruding rock formation, each of them using ripped-off pavilion roofs as hats to shield their eyes from the rising sun. Sachiel held a make-shift fishing rod loosely, and Shamshel had his tentacles resting over the tractor-trailer rig that was serving as their tackle-box.

"Gaghiel should be gettin' in 'bout now."

"Yep."

Long peaceful silence.

"Looks like rain."

"Yep."

(hock, spit).

Long peaceful silence.

"Anything?"

"Not a bite."

Yet another long peaceful silence.

Sachiel was suddenly yanked down into the volcano before he even had a chance to whimper.

Long peaceful silence.

"You been mighty quiet, Sach. You oka-" Shamshel's fake country accent was interrupted by a very hot Israfel being dumped into his arms. "AAAAYIIIII! IT BURNS!" He dropped the slowly cooling Angel onto the rock beside him.

"Thanks for the backup, there, 'buddy'!" Sachiel gasped, his hands on his knees as he caught his breath and gingerly touched his burn wounds.

* * *

Azumi Ishikawa sat at her desk, humming quietly as she sipped her coffee and looked over her case reports for the day. _This one looks interesting._ Apparently there was some kind of spat between a pretty large group of people. Women it looked like. The psychologist usually had just one, and sometimes two people in her sessions. Every once in a while an entire family would come in, but that was so rare it wasn't even worth mentioning. But this... she shook her head slowly, her curiosity piqued. She reached over and pushed the 'talk' button on the intercom.

"Send them in, please."

The door slid open revealing a young man flanked by four women with varying expressions of angst and anger on their faces. Her curiosity grew, and she found herself feeling a touch of pity at the harried look on the young man's face. She banished her feelings and donned the cloak of objectivity.

"My name is Azumi Ishikawa," she said in a warm voice. "For our sessions, please call me Azumi. Now, if you would, take a seat and introduce yourselves," she said with a kind smile, indicating the cushions laid out on the floor. "Starting with the young man." She of course had their names and pictures, but found that a wealth of information could be had just in the way someone introduced themselves. Plus, it was a subtle way to begin the helpful group exercises that were usually called for in such large counseling sessions.

"Shinji Ikari," the boy said, not meeting her eyes. She took note of this.

"Asuka Langley Sohryu!" the redhead exclaimed, with what was obviously a pasted-on smile.

"Rei Ayanami," the girl said softly, sitting at ease.

"Hikari Horaki." The class rep's voice was somewhat subdued, and there was obvious anger.

"Mana Kirishima," the brunette mumbled sulkily, glaring at Asuka.

"Now," the doctor began, preparing a list of probing questions that did not in any way seem confrontational or obvious. She need not have bothered.

"What they did was completely unacceptable!" Hikari shrilled. "They're too..."

"...is that jealousy I hear, Hikari?" Asuka shrieked. "Maybe you want to get _your_ hot little hands on his..."

Hikari went pink, and her rebuttal died on her lips as she realized that at some level it was the truth. She struggled with herself, then started to speak, only to have Mana break in furiously.

"You have no right to speak like that after I soundly defeated you in such..."

"You caught me by surprise!" Asuka screeched. "Just you..."

"You want a rematch?" Mana asked with a fierce smile.

"Any time, any place!" Asuka snarled.

"Give me specifics."

"Quit acting all smug!" the redhead's temper began to fray. "You know where to find me!"

"Yeah, I do." Mana gave the redhead a vicious little grin. "Inside Shinj-" Asuka flew at the brunette and it took Shinji and all the other girls to pull them apart.

Azumi took off her glasses, pinched the bridge of her nose, and tried to fight off the beginnings of a headache.

"Shinji," she said, putting on her glasses and deciding to tackle the simplest-looking problem before her. "Is there something wrong?"

"...uh," the boy was unsure of how to answer. "Yes, that's why they brought me-ouch!" Hikari had kicked him in the leg. "...that's why we all came here today," he said, looking side-long at the normally demure Class Rep, who averted her gaze for her own sanity's sake.

"What I mean is," the doctor favored him with a warm smile, but he still refused to meet her gaze. "...you have yet to look me in the eyes." The doctor was somewhat surprised to see the varying range of emotions pass over the different girls' faces. Panic from Hikari, thoughtful curiosity from Rei, and of course enraged jealousy from Asuka, who quickly schooled her features back to just rage.

"...eh, you don't want me to do that, doctor," Shinji said coughing delicately.

"Why not?" she asked, genuine curiosity pushing her to ask the question directly. The girls' expressions continued to change rapidly, and they all blushed to varying degrees.

"...don't you _dare_ tell her," Hikari said towards Shinji in an undertone.

"...uh," Shinji began to sweat, and then the door opened, and he almost collapsed with relief at the interruption. It was the Ancient Professor. The man nodded towards Shinji.

"Come with me, if you please, mister Ikari." He smiled at the doctor. "I hope you don't mind, but something has been brought to my attention, and I feel that the boy requires special instruction."

"Of course, Sensei," Azumi nodded, and Shinji stood up. The girls watched him go, mixtures of longing and desperately wishing they knew what he might accidentally reveal on their faces. Azumi watched the girls, her curiosity continuing to rise. _No doubt about it. They are all smitten with the boy. Most curious._

* * *

Shinji and the Professor walked down the hall, and questions filled the boy's mind.

"Wait here, mister Ikari," the old man said, unknowingly sealing the fate of yet another young female. "I must get something from my office." He had reasons for not wanting Shinji in his private sanctum, and in his mind the chances were small of any further incidents during the short time he was in his office. After all, the boy had managed to keep his harem down to just four young women, which meant he knew what was happening and was atleast practicing restraint. The old man smiled as he entered his office and locked the door. _Young Shinji Ikari is indeed unique. I have been given clearance to instruct him, which is unusual._ Young men this strong in the Charm were usually framed, and then tossed into the looney bin to keep them out of trouble and from interfering with the Council's 'Deep Dark Secret Plans', but the Charm Council was loathe to lose a young man who obviously practiced such restraint even without any training.

Shinji leaned against the door jamb unknowingly mimicking one of Kaji's poses. The boy's confidence had gotten a boost as of late, though he knew no amount of confidence would save him from Asuka if the girl decided to punish him for their shared 'accident.' His thoughts were interrupted by a familiar face who walked into view.

"Hey, Mana!" he said with what he hoped was a befriending smile. The girl was an enigma to him. She had initially been brash, using him to enter the resets (for reasons he did not know), but she had recently grown almost cold towards him. True, he had not paid her much attention, but she was the one who had been ignoring him... His thoughts were interrupted by a niggling doubt. The brunette had been walking along, her head lowered, her books hugged against her chest in a very feminine fashion. Mana was usually bold and outgoing. _Did Miss Azumi get to her somehow? _"Mana, what's wrong?" He asked, putting a hand on her shoulder as she passed.

The girl looked over her shoulder, turning at his touch. "Oh, you were talking to m-" her voice caught as her eyes connected with his, and a blush crept onto her cheeks. "How-how do you know my name?" she asked shyly in a voice so quiet he could barely hear it.

"What are you talking about, Mana," the confused boy drew closer trying to hear what she was saying.

The girl's blush deepened, and her hand crept up to his cheek without her knowing. _How does he know my name? He-he's so cute..._ Shinji did not know that this was the real Mana Kirishima, who had transferred into Tokyo-3 along with the first operational Trident. This Mana was quite shy, and was used to being bundled around by Section Two. Impossibly, she had led a more sheltered life than Rei, but without the Gendo-abuse (in other words, she had a normal family).

Shinji reached up and took her hand, which had been resting on his cheek for the last half-minute.

"...aah!" she jumped, her books slipping from her hand, and she would have collapsed into a heap on the ground if Shinji had not suddenly put his other arm around her waist to hold her up. Her blush deepened and frantic tears gathered at the edges of her eyes. She brought her free hand up to her cheeks. _I-I'm blushing! How embarrassing!_ His eyes drew her closer, and she shuddered a little as Shinji's eyes widened.

_Wait, this isn't Mana..._ The boy backed up, realizing he had accidentally seduced what had to be Mana's twin sister. Embarrassed tears flew from her eyes as she shook her head once, gathered her books from the floor, and fled blindly down the hall.

_Oops,_ Shinji thought with an embarrassed grin. Mana happened to glance back as she ran, and his grin did not help. "...aaah!" She ran right into another student and books flew in all directions. She slumped to the floor in a dead faint.

"...um, are you okay?" the girl she had run into bent over her in concern.

Shinji felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see the Ancient Professor.

"Are you ready?" the old man asked. Shinji nodded.


	12. Everything Changes

Chapter 12 – The Storm

"Anyone-want-to-go-to-the-mall?"

Who knew the harbinger of doomsday would be brought by those seven words from one insane Misato Katsuragi?

Grumbling and sniping, Shinji-and-friends made their way out to the parking lot of the apartment complex. They were stopped by the sight of their ride, which screamed out 'awesome' and 'my-creator-is-a-raving-lunatic' at the same time. In fact, Misato had been desperately screwing with her Tarot card's variables until she found a way to make what, for all intents and purposes, was a stretch-Lambo. The monstrosity had six wheels (two pair in back and one pair in front), a shockingly lurid color scheme that one might expect from a color-blind tye-died shirt maker, and enough cylinders to put the Detroit Automakers back by a year or so.

"That's... wrong on so many levels," Asuka commented in an unusually quiet voice.

"Is it safe?" Hikari asked in a small voice, and no one answered. Everyone assumed it was a rhetorical question. Even Rei.

"Oh-pshaw!" Misato chortled, and began chucking girls into the car like there was no tomorrow.

* * *

"Worse... than an Eva launch!" Shinji gasped, staggering from the deathtrap and onto the blessed ground.

"I swear that woman would be right at home in a Mad Max movie!" Asuka griped, smoothing out her dress.

"I-I'm sure she was just misunderstood as a child, or something," Hikari squeaked, trying to regain control of her vocal cords.

"She broke fifty three local traffic ordinances," Rei reminded the Class Rep. The blue-haired girl was calm as always, but there was a telltale bead of sweat running down the side of her face.

"Hmph," Mana said sulkily. Then, "HLORFF!" Everyone discretely stepped around the mess. After hasty visits to the restrooms, the party split up into groups.

"Hey Mana, want to go check out the Fall Fashions?" Hikari said excitedly.

"Uh? Well I guess I don't mind-URK!" Mana found herself dragged bodily into a clothing store.

"Come on, First," Asuka said, "Let's hit the food court!" Asuka gave Shinji a cheery little wave that said 'so long, sucker!' The boy did not catch this, sadly.

Shinji looked around. Misato looked over at Shinji, who was the only one left.

"...hehehehehehe!"

* * *

Asuka walked along, eating take-out from one of the pseudo-German hole-in-the-wall food-shops scattered around the Mall. _It really is nice to have a day off from school and NERV and..._ Her thoughts were interrupted by the sight of Love Potion Rei coming in her direction with a group of young men trailing behind her.

"Wh-what are you doing, wondergirl?" Asuka blurted out.

"Training." The purple-fringed girl had apparently registered her school uniform as one of her outfits, and it was immaculate. "You saw Miss Katsuragi's car. The cards are quite flexible, and I will only learn by practicing."

"Hmph!" Asuka's slapped her hand against a wall, causing a passing male to abruptly stop. She gave the boy a mind-blowing smile, and after chatting him up, she brought the poor besotted young man over to Rei. "See? You don't need a card trick to pick up men!"

Rei made a little 'tsk' noise, shaking her head. "I am sorry, Pilot Sohryu, but you will not be able to compete with me in this form."

Asuka opened her mouth, but her retort died on her tongue at Rei's next actions. The girl slinked up to the young man, gave him a little wink, put her finger underneath his chin, and he was hers. He was even leaning in to kiss her when she smoothly stepped aside, causing him to fall flat on his face.

"Oh, you think you're so hot?" Asuka shrieked.

"Indeed I do, Pilot Sohryu," Rei answered, as the young man joined her impromptu crowd.

"Bring it!" The redhead switched her clips from 'doom' to 'angst' and activated her own Love Potion form, the tips of her hair going vibrant orange. The two pilots swept through the mall like vacuum cleaners, picking up all the young men in their path. Fights began to break out where the two harems intermingled.

* * *

Shinji had managed to lose Misato in a liquor shop, and was currently wandering the Mall, his hands in his pockets. It was nice to be able to look people in the eyes again without worrying if they were female, and whether they might be seduced by his casual glance. The Ancient Professor had been thorough, and the lesson had been surprisingly short. Afterwards, the old man had told him, in effect, that the training was very easy to pick up, but difficult to completely master. It turned out to be very easy to suppress the Charm, but very difficult to control, and so Shinji currently only had two settings – 'off' and 'mind-bendingly hot.' He had turned himself 'off' after the lesson, and truth be told, he was not sure if he would ever turn himself back on, atleast not until he had mastered the art.

_Oh well, I did enjoy it while it lasted,_ Shinji thought with a bittersweet sigh. _It's not very fair to keep all the girls hanging off my coat-tails without any free will of their own... _His thoughts were interrupted by a flash of white in the distance, and he stopped moving. He had no way of knowing, but he would not take another step in this reality. He had barely caught a glance through the throngs of people crowding the mall, and then several seconds later the crowd's random movements opened a pathway enough for him to see.

_Mana_.

She wore a white sundress, a wide-brimmed white hat, and she had just turned her head in time to see him. This was the other Mana, he knew, because she did not have a guitar slung across her back. He sheepishly raised a hand in greeting, and to his surprise, her face lit up. The sight of her as she wove her way through the crowd brought a strange familiarity that he could not identify, and he found himself searching his memory in vain trying to place the feeling. She ran up and threw her arms around him.

"Shinji," her voice shook as she spoke into his ear. "I don't know why I didn't recognize you at the school! I thought I'd never see you again..."

He was too stunned to ask questions, or notice that a thin black film was spreading beneath the two of them.

* * *

Lieutenant Shigeru turned from his monitor in Central Dogma as the red 'alert' signals lit up all around. "Angel has been detected in the middle of Tokyo-3!"

"What!?" Fuyutski had just gotten up to get a cup of coffee, the long weekend shift having begun.

"It just popped up with no warning!"

* * *

Asuka and Rei mowed their way through the mall until they happened across the spot where Shinji and Mana were standing. They saw the two of them embracing, and the shock caused them to drop their Love Potion forms. The massive crowd of young men behind them suddenly began to mill around in confusion, wondering what they were doing.

* * *

Fate/Mana and Hikari had just exited the clothing shop and were heading towards the food court when Fate/Mana happened to catch a glimpse of Shinji and Mana. _No! How did I let this happen?_ She desperately thought back to when she had first taken form, and her plan. _To screw Gendo using Sachiel, because of what he said._ And somehow she had gotten caught up with this boy, trapped by his Charm into staying far longer than she had intended. This meeting was not supposed to have happened. She noticed the spreading patch of inky blackness beneath the two of them, and saw them begin to sink into it.

"No! Shinji...!" she heard Asuka cry out from some distance away, and saw the redhead running towards the boy, Rei behind her.

The two figures disappeared into the blackness, which continued to spread.

* * *

Touch.

Warmth.

Shinji floated amidst darkness, and the only root he had was the young woman in his arms. Beyond that there was no light, no sound, no smell, nothing to tell him anything of his surroundings.

_Flashback_

_Mana was standing beside the black Section Two car, a forlorn expression on her face. She wore her usual white sleeveless button-up shirt and red blouse._

"_I feel responsible for all of this," she said, and Shinji immediately shook his head._

"_No, that's not..._

"_I'm sorry Shinji." The deep sorrow in her expression brought a lump to his throat. "I know an apology isn't enough in this case, but it's all I have." She struggled to continue, a tear slipping down her cheek. "I'm going to be given a new name, a new house, I'll be in a far-away city no one knows about. No one connected to the Evas, anyway."_

"_I really won't get to see you again." The enormity of it finally dawned on him, and it was enough to almost buckle his knees. He had never felt this way about anyone before, let alone a girl, and he had no defense against the sudden sense of loss._

"_I'll come visit you. I don't know when, but I promise I will." His eyes blurred with tears at the emotion in her voice._

"_I'll... I'll be waiting for you."_

_End Flashback_

Shinji pondered the strange memory. He knew it was his, yet he could not place it anywhere in his life. He did not understand how this could be, but from the looks of things, he had plenty of time to think about it.


	13. Conversations

Author's Notes: Just an FYI, my Love Hina inspiration came back (glee!), and that takes priority. I'll continue this, but chapter-length may vary.

Pyro – Eh, sorry, they can't all be wacked out ;-) everything changes, it's a part of... life? I'll try to keep the same writing style and feel, but no promises. It's impossible to keep the craziness climbing indefinitely anyways, it would hit the wall at some point, and just get so ridiculous that it would make no sense whatsoever... or something.

In any case, I'll do my best.

* * *

Chapter 13

Shinji woke up on a very familiar beach. The night stars were bright, crucified mass-production Evas were scattered around, and the ruins of Tokyo-3 stood off in the distance. He sat up and looked over at his companion, whose white dress was fairly glowing in the moon-light. She stirred, and sat up groggily.

"Sh... Shinji?" She coughed, regaining control of her voice. "Why're you staring at me like that?" She smiled in relief. Back in the mall she had been afraid that she had met up with the boy only to lose him again.

"...ahh," The boy's mind was pretty frayed at the moment. "Hahah... the last time I woke up in a place like this, I was strangling someone."

Mana wasn't quite sure how to take that, but then she wasn't quite sure how to explain her surroundings either. _Is he crazy?_ She looked around at the gloom and destruction. _...ick, I feel a little out of it myself._

"I'm a time-traveller," Shinji said solemnly, also looking around. "...by the way. Just thought you'd like to know."

"Oh no, that makes perfect sense! Haha...!" she edged away from him slightly. Actually, compared to where they were, anything the boy said would have made sense.

"No, here, I'll prove it!" he closed his eyes, then after several moments of frustration, opened them. "I guess I'm not a time-traveler after all."

"I... see." Mana picked up her white wide-brimmed hat, shaking the dampness out of it. "Don't you have to have some kind of machine or something to be a time traveler? Like a Delorean?" The silence really was uncomfortable, and she was desperate for any kind of conversation, even a crazy one.

"Oh, no!" Shinji said with a smile, scratching the back of his head. "I just think, and it happens! And I can bring other people with me if I kiss them in a magic cir...cle. This sounds crazy doesn't it?"

_He just realized it?_ She waved the comment off. "hahaha-nooo, crazy? Crazy is waking up in the middle of a freakin warzone _with a guy who yammers on about being a time traveler who kisses girls in magic circles!!"_ She panted for a few moments after the spiel, and this time it was Shinji who edged away.

* * *

The two survivors-of-mysterious-circumstance wandered the ruins of the once great Tokyo-3. Shinji put his hands in his pockets, looking around at the wrecked buildings. He felt something in his pockets.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, pulling out the bundle of cards. "Proof I'm a time traveler!"

Mana sighed. _Not this again._

"No, no," he waved his arms excitedly. "Really! Wait here."

She waited, listening to the pat of his feet against the ground as he ran off. She looked around. Suddenly she was standing in front of the boy. "AAH! ...um, what just happened?"

"I summoned you!" he exclaimed, showing her the Tarot card. The picture looked just like her, and the words 'Mana Kirishima' were at the bottom, but...

"I don't own a guitar," she pointed out. "More to the point, we've never kissed in a magic circle."

_I can't believe I just said that._

* * *

Mana walked carefully down the rubble-strewn make-shift path into the shattered Geofront. Her head was still spinning from Shinji's story, and his denial of any memory of her own life. Hard as it was to believe, this was not the Shinji she had met, which raised all sorts of horrible little existential questions.

_Oh well, atleast things can't get any worse._

This thought of hers was actually what saved them. It was Fate's job to punish those who made such dangerously naïve statements, and when Mana had this thought, it clued Fate in on their location in time and space. There was an abbreviated 'pop' and then Shinji felt a warm body collide with his.

"Oh thank goodness I found you!" Fate/Mana near-sobbed.

"Body-snatcher!" the real Mana exclaimed, pointing a shaking finger at the newcomer.


	14. Back to Normal

While Shinji was dealing with the two Manas, Asuka and Rei were in their Evas arguing about how best to bring Shinji back. Between them floated the big puffy zebra-colored shadow of Leliel.

"If I spread my AT-field according to the inverse Sine-wave-" Asuka continued babbling and immediately lost everyone except Ritsuko, who began to get a dangerous gleam in her eye.

"Why don't we just drop all-of-our-N2-bombs-in-there-and-see-what-happens??" Misato's face nearly cracked from the size of the smile she wore.

"Are you crazy?!" Asuka screeched.

"I-get-asked-that-alot-actually..." Misato muttered turning to look at Gendo, who shrugged. The man knew better than to touch this conversation with a ten foot pole. Speaking of ten foot poles, while Asuka and Misato were arguing, Unit-00 had pulled an Eva-sized hat-pin from God knows where, walked up to Leliel's shadow, and popped it like a balloon. She made sure to catch Shinji and the two Manas before they could fall to the ground. Nobody noticed, but as the pool of inky blackness that was Leliel slowly contracted and faded away, it coalesced into a small female form which stumbled over and collapsed against a weapons building.

* * *

"I... see." Mana said, looking down at the ground. "He said he'd wait for me..."

"And he did!" Fate exclaimed, putting her hand on the girl's shoulder. "The Shinji from your reality waited for you, for over a year, even. Then he got a call from Misato in Germany saying that Asuka had gone into a depression and had even tried to commit suicide. You know how Shinji is, he went over there immediately, and, well, it's not like they have the most romantic relationship in the world, but they're happy."

"Hah," Mana swiped at her eyes a little, preemptively combating the wetness building up. "...and I guess it doesn't matter anyway. If you sent me back there, Section Two would eventually find me and put me in jail if I tried to contact him."

"Yeah," Fate smiled, happy that the girl had come to such a conclusion without her having to make something up. "I could try to find another reality for you, one in which there's a Shinji waiting for you..."

Mana shook her head, hearing the doubt in Fate's voice. "Don't try to cheer me up. Didn't you tell me how hard it is to find something like that? For all you know, you'll send me to a worse reality than this one..."

Fate coughed delicately. _I don't think there's a more screwed up reality than this one, but whatever you say..._

"Besides, this reality's Shinji seems nice..." she gestured over to where the boy was standing, surrounded by his entourage. "Atleast those girls think so. They can't all be wrong..." She put on a gentle smile, smoothed her white sun-hat, and walked over to join the heated group discussion.

_Good luck..._ Fate thought with a sigh, then shook her head slightly. _Wait, what am I saying? She's one of my rivals now!_ She adjusted her guitar case on her back and followed after her look-a-like.

* * *

Shinji-and-friends were currently standing around outside a rather upscale beef-bowl-joint (if such a place exists), and the mood was festive (if you play with the definition of 'festive' just a tad).

"If Shinji has learned how to control his Charm, why are we all still here?" Hikari asked, her arms crossed. In fact, they all knew the answer to that question already, but none were willing to voice it. Rei (who liked the boy even without his Charm) was standing beside him, and the girl somehow managed to convey the happiness she felt without actually smiling or making any facial expressions (Rei is just like that, but I digress). Asuka (who by this point had become addicted to the feelings she got when his Charm was turned on) was standing to his other side, looking side-long at Rei with not a little jealousy. Hikari was standing off to one side trying to sort out her true feelings, and was wishing she and Shinji were alone so it would be easier.

Shinji noticed Mana and Fate approaching, and he smiled and waved, relieved at the interruption they provided. "Hi Mana! ...and... Fate...!" Two jealous heads turned, and Rei watched with curiosity. Mana blushed, and Fate smirked.

"Hey!" Asuka exclaimed, ever alert, "where did you two go when you were sucked into that Angel?"

"Ah," suddenly Shinji was not so happy for the new arrivals. "...t-to the post-Third-Impact reality!" he said in a most unconvincing manner. In truth he was not sure himself where he had gone.

"You're just making stuff up!" Asuka ranted. As the two of them got into a rousing argument, a black-haired female peeked her head around the corner of a building some distance away. Rei felt a tingle in her Angelic heart of hearts and went to investigate.

* * *

Rei eventually found the girl.

"You are an Angel," Rei said, surprise in her voice. The girl was dressed in a simple gray blouse with a yellow pullover sweater, wore round-framed glasses, and had long black hair which hung over her shoulders. "...and you like Ikari," she continued, following the girl's gaze. The girl nodded, pushing her two index fingers together in an embarrassed way.

_How odd,_ thought Rei.

* * *

"I want the truth!" Asuka shrieked. "You two went 'somewhere' and did 'something' didn't you??"

"What!?" Shinji exclaimed.

Mana stepped forward and slapped Asuka across the face, and the redhead fell back a few paces, her hand on her cheek, the other shaking finger pointing at the brown-haired girl. "...whuh, guh... If you didn't look so helpless, I'd teach you a lesson!" Actually Asuka was unsure if this Mana even knew any martial arts.

"Asuka, I think it's kind of hypocritical of you to be accusing her of doing 'something,'" Hikari said rather crossly. "After all, you and Shinji have already..."

"Don't you dare say it!" Asuka yelled desperately, waving her arms up and down.

"I can tell you where they went," a quiet voice spoke into the sudden lull in the conversation.

All eyes turned to the black-haired new-comer Rei had brought.

"Who are you?" Hikari asked, curious.

"Mayumi Yamagishi," the girl answered shyly.


	15. Elementary My Dear Fuyutski

Author's Notes: Mayumi is actually from a game called '2nd Impression' for the Sega Saturn, of all things.

Popkov – actually, since she was Leliel, her infatuation started when Shinji and his eva got trapped inside her in the original timeline ;-p make of that what you will

* * *

Chapter 15 -- Elementary, My Dear Fuyutski

The small hillock the three pilots previously used for stargazing was now quite crowded, but atleast it was as peaceful as when the three original pilots first reclined thereon. Some sort of unspoken truce was apparently in effect, and no one was willing to be the first to bring turmoil to such a nice location. Shinji took a sip from his canned tea, his heart fairly glowing.

"Hey," Fate said happily, "let's all tell a little story about how and when we each first fell in love with Shinji!"

Oh well, so much for the peace.

The boy spewed his tea and fell into a choking fit that caused Rei to sit up in alarm.

"Do you require CPR, Pilot Ikari?" she asked, concern on her porcelain features.

"Like hell!" Asuka exclaimed. "You're just looking for an excuse to..."

"If I wanted to give him 'that' kind of CPR, I would not make an excuse," the albino retorted, pounding the boy on the back until he got his breath back.

"Well, to be fair, if someone needed CPR," Hikari explained a little sheepishly, "they probably wouldn't be able to answer your question."

Rei sat there for a moment, then raised a finger. "He could have nodded."

"Alright, Ayanami," Mana said with a little smile, "we all admit you weren't trying to kiss Shinji."

Silence, and a multitude of blushing ensued. Shinji had to stop himself from humming happily, which might have caused a fistfight to break out.

"I don't admit it," Asuka said sulkily, and a fistfight broke out. The scuffle quickly enveloped the area where Shinji was lying. When the smoke cleared, the boy was covered in footprints and everyone was again lying down on the small hillock, their clothes messed up..

"Why does love hurt so much?" he complained, sweat-dropping.

"BAKA!" All but two of the girls hit him on the head. I leave it to you to guess which two didn't hit him.

"That does it!" Shinji exclaimed, turning on his Charm and hoping that would improve things. It did, but not in the way he expected. This time when the smoke cleared (and he had turned off his Charm again), his clothes were ripped and torn, and the girls were all blushing to various degrees while glancing at each other with suspicion.

"...oh, I give up," Shinji sighed, putting his hands behind his head and closing his eyes.

"That is a good healthy attitude to have, Shin-chan," Rei commented, a content look on her face. Asuka began to growl.

* * *

Some time later after a nice peaceful silence, Rei answered Fate's original question. "I recognized my feelings in the original time-line when he rescued me after the fifth Angel attack." There was a chorus of happy little noises at such a cute moment.

"For me it was when we piloted together in my Unit-02 against the sixth Angel!" Asuka exclaimed proudly.

"Really?!" Shinji asked in surprise.

"...say one more word and I'll kill you slowly," the redhead threatened in an undertone.

"...yes ma'am!" Shinji said a little too quickly, then yelped in pain when she swatted him.

"What about you, Mana?" Hikari asked, genuinely curious.

"Oh," the girl fingered her white hat which was lying on her stomach. "That's kind of embarrassing. The Shinji I fell in love with ran off to comfort Asuka who was about to commit suicide." There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. "But the Shinji in this reality seems nice," she added quickly. Asuka waited for the boy to make a comment that would seal his fate, but he seemed to have wised up for once, and restrained himself.

"Well," Fate finally spoke, "technically I fell in love with him outside of time, and so I've got you all beat."

There was a moment of silence before Hikari spoke. "How does that work anyway?"

"Actually you're all forgetting Mayumi," Mana said before another fistfight could break out. They all turned to the black-haired girl who pushed her index fingers together and smiled a little.

"...he-he stepped into my shadow," she said almost too softly to hear, and everyone cooed again.

"Hey, I want a more clear explanation," Asuka sniped.

"Okay." By way of answer, Mayumi reached over and touched her finger to the top of the girl's head.

"What? What was..." the redhead's exclamatory remark was interrupted by a surprised screech, and then the girl disappeared into a spreading pool of blackness with a 'ploop.' The patch of blackness shrank away, and a small zebra-striped sphere appeared over Mayumi's head.

"Is... is that safe?" Hikari asked in a small voice.

"...umm," Mayumi shut her eyes and the sphere popped, depositing Asuka into her arms. The redhead looked around frantically, regained her bearings, then went for the girl's throat with a shriek of rage. Mayumi let out a 'yeep!' and scrambled behind Shinji, who incidentally would not have provided much cover against a berserk Asuka. It was Fate and Rei who got hold of the redhead's arms in order to prevent a blood-bath, while the black-haired girl huddled behind the boy, her arms around him. By the time Asuka calmed down and looked back towards Shinji, the boy and Mayumi were gone, and an innocuous-looking zebra-sphere was floating away down the street.

"That's it, she dies!" Asuka took off after it, and the other girls took off after Asuka.

* * *

Sub-Commander Fuyutski happened to be in a laundromat at the time, reading a newspaper and waiting for his civvie clothes to finish drying. He glanced over at the timer, which currently read 00:01:48 and was counting down. _Two minutes and I'm home free. Hello, three-day-weekend..._ He was about to go back to his paper when he noticed the commotion outside the window. A strange-looking ball floated by, followed by a group of girls among whom he recognized the First and Second Child. _I don't want to know,_ the old man wisely decided, quickly lifting his newspaper. _I don't want to know, I don't want to-_


	16. Her Crimson Eyes

Chapter 16 – Her Crimson Eyes

Rei stood before the mirror in the bathroom of her apartment.

Red eyes.

Every day she woke up, and stood before the mirror, and stared at her red eyes. Some days she woke up twice, three times, or even more, thanks to the resets. And each time she stood before the mirror, she stayed there a little longer. Logically speaking, if this kept up, soon she would spend the entire day in front of the mirror, thinking empty angry thoughts about her irrevocably red eyes.

_My happiness now that I am with Ikari-kun should outweigh the fact that I have red eyes._

_Why does it not?_

She pondered this for some minutes.

Her hatred... no, hatred was too sullied a word. Her dislike. Her dislike of the color red was deep-seated, and she had not shared it with anyone, even her precious Ikari-kun. She loved the boy, but he was weak, and Sohryu would eventually torture it out of him, or the boy would slip and accidentally reveal it. If Sohryu ever learned that she hated... disliked the color red, it would all be over.

_Infinity._

_The length of time we will live thanks to the resets._

_With an infinite amount of time, all possible outcomes will eventually arise. Sohryu will learn I dislike the color red._

It was unacceptable, yet inevitable.

* * *

This day was much like any other day, in that the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the color red still existed. The Children walked to school, and the usual conversations and arguments wafted through the air.

"So, Mana, your reality's Touji is pretty much like ours?"

"Yeah."

"Have they... are the two of them..." Mana looked confused for a moment, then leaned over and whispered the answer into Hikari's ear. Giggle giggle blush giggle. Meanwhile Asuka had not stopped looking daggers at Mayumi, who was pissing off the redhead by completely ignoring her.

"I'm bored, Ikari-kun."

Shinji did not think much of this statement from Rei, except for the fact that it was slightly odd. But then Rei was slightly odd, so he shrugged it off. Thanks to the resets, boredom was something they would all have to endure. In between the seductions, the violent raging fights, and the pack of partially insane Angels that prowled outside of Tokyo-3.

* * *

The chamber with the purple coolant and fake entry plugs was quite crowded. The four Children were undergoing harmonics tests, and Mana was in a room off to one side in her own special pod undergoing neuro-sync training for her linkup with the Trident, which now sat in the launch bay beside the four Evas. Which were not at all happy.

"Why do I get stuck by the bucket of bolts?" Yui groused.

"You lost the match," Kyoko answered sweetly.

"I don't want to have to stand beside this walking scrapheap just because I suck at rock-Eva-scissors!" Yui said sharply.

"Quit complaining!" barked Naoko. "I'm trying to make Rei's harmonics test miserable, and 'Rit-chan' has made that more difficult than ever with these damned restraints!"

A technician happened to walk by Unit-01, and the biomechanoid's right arm broke out of its restraints, blurred over, and knocked the Trident into the wall and into a heap.

"Dammit!" Ritsuko yelled from her perch in the control room. "Not _again!_"

"Oh, I'm sorry," Yui's saccharine voice came through the control room speakers. "I thought that technician was Shinji, and I thought there was a girder coming down towards him, and so I was just trying to protect him!" Ritsuko ground her teeth together, not bothering to answer the irrepressible Eva.

Using all manner of cranes and lifting equipment, technicians began to put the Trident back into place, this time noticeably out of arms reach of any of the Evas, and Rei sat in her test-plug thinking deep dark thought about her eyes and Asuka's hair. Then the albino happened to notice something very important.

Ritsuko glanced at her monitor, and her eyes widened. She reached out and thumped the monitor as if she could not believe what it was reporting. "Rei," she started to say, but a hand covered her mouth, silencing her. A porcelain hand.

Meanwhile, a horrific scream of pain issued forth from Gendo's office, and the Rei undergoing the harmonics test began to smile. Israfel chose that moment to interrupt Rei's plan.

* * *

Asuka tried and failed to keep hold on the damnably agile leg of whichever half of Israfel she happened to have caught hold of.

"This isn't right!" the exasperated redhead shrieked, forcing her mother to raise a temporary AT-field inside the plug so the plug-wall itself wouldn't crack. "These… things… won't hold still!"

The Angel slipped out of her Eva's hands and immediately began spinning at a high rate of speed.

"gvrebblsellllephffft!" the Angel exclaimed, becoming a whirlwind of circular motion and joining its brother who had escaped Shinji's grasp. The two whirlwinds spun and bounced madly about on unpredictable paths of destruction throughout the city.

"Verdammt! Reset again, Shinji!" the frazzled German pilot yelled, the three other pilots watching helplessly as the Angels wrecked the city. "Shinji?! Why are we still here??"

"...ummm," Shinji found the words dying on his tongue as a familiar massive white figure snuck up behind Unit-02.

"What!?" the redhead screeched, her Eva's hands on its hips as she glared at Unit-01. "Why're you looking at me like-MMMPH!" Rei/Lilith's giant white hand had snaked around Unit-02's neck and placed a giant chloroform-soaked towel over Unit-02's face.

_Now why would she do tha-_ Shinji's thoughts were rudely interrupted by a glowing white Rei-figure inside his entry plug that proceeded to seduce him. He promptly melted into a puddle of orange tang. As did everyone else on earth.

* * *

"-rdammt! Reset again, Shinji!" Asuka yelled. The three other pilots watched helpessly as the Angels wrecked the city.

"Okay..." Wait. Shinji looked at his video link to Unit-00 and did a double-take. "Wait, where's Rei?"

"Scheisse!" Asuka berated him. "Stop making people up and reset things, will you? I've got better things to do than sit inside a giant human fighting monstrous horrors from some other planet!"

A very confused Shinji reset them back to the beginning of the battle. The twin angels/tasmanian-devils promptly wiped the floor with them again. And again. And again. At this point, Misato ordered Shinji to reset things all the way back to the beginning of the day.

"You-all-need-more-training-and-I've-got-just-the-thing!"

* * *

Shinji, Asuka, Fate, and Mayumi stood before Misato in her apartment. Mana stood to one side, along with Touji, Kensuke, and Hikari. All of them were looking askance at two Twister pads which had been laid out on the floor, along with a boombox and two small monitors.

"What... the _hell_... is this?" Asuka finally asked.

"This," Misato vibrated happily, "...is-a-game. One I like to call: Twister-Twister-Revolution!"

Silence greeted the absurd statement.

"Now!" Misato's ear-splitting grin grew even wider. "All we have to do is decide the pairings!"


	17. Death By Molestation

Author's Notes: Now, back by popular demand (well, actually by Pyro's demand, and believe you me, that guy can be demanding (-ouch- stoppit Pyro, that's a lead pipe) well, Pyro is popular (right?) so I guess it is by popular demand) where was I? Oh yes, back by Pyro's- I mean popular demand... ah forget it

* * *

Chapter 17 – Death By Molestation

The great white form of Lilith/Rei was curled up in slumber upon the cross-infested earth, her head resting on the precious black sphere that contained the blissfully ignorant souls of humanity. The grumbling forms of all the currently-present Angels languished beneath her resting form, trapped there by her now-prodigious bulk.

"Wait for Israfel, you said," Satchiel griped. Shamshel did not answer, but he knew his brother was nearby, since he had heard the pitifully muffled screaming up until about an hour ago. "Israfel will take care of everything." Pregnant pause. "You said." He heard an embarrassed grunt, but felt no sympathy whatsoever. "Then why the hell am I stuck beneath Miss Sta-Puft the Marshmallow Queen??!"

Meanwhile, Rei dreamed, and the rest of humanity dreamed right along with her.

* * *

Rei's Dream

Tokyo-3, the bustling transformable mega-city, was filled with life, and the color red. Beneath multiple layers of armored substrate was spread out the lush greenery of the Geofront, and beneath that were the hidden and multitudinous halls of NERV. Beneath THAT was a very large space that had been carved out by the power of a single mind, the owner of which sat in a throne pushed up against one of the walls of the massive cave-like room. Her small form was hidden by a light-blue flowing cape which hung from an overly flamboyant dark blue breast-plate-shoulder-pouldron combination. A slender gloved hand turned the page of the small booklet she was reading very intently. Closing the manga with a snap, her crimson gaze bored into the far wall as she brooded. Finally, her other hand reached out, carefully depressing a button set into the armrest of her throne.

* * *

Raucous music danced its way through Misato's apartment as the three observers danced the fine line between death-by-dismemberment and death-by-suppressed-laughter.

"Left arm blue!" Misato cackled, calculating the most difficult move possible for the struggling redhead. "Right-leg-yellow!!"

Asuka sweated, cursed, stole a look over at the duo to her left, and immediately lost her temper, then her balance.

"What the hell are you doing, you slut??" she screeched, as Fate seductively threaded an arm around Shinji's, placing her hand on a blue circle. Asuka collapsed into a tangle of limbs with Mayumi, who attempted to escape the enraged redhead.

"Winning," Fate cooed, her mouth next to Shinji's ear, causing the boy to blush and fall into a heap, dragging her down on top of him. "Why Shinji, I didn't know you felt that way," she purred, ever so slowly oozing her way off him.

"YAAAAAH!" A red blur impacted the seductress, and they both tumbled across the room into the wall with a crash.

"-th-th-thanks, I think," Shinji gasped.

"You're next, dummkoph!" she snarled, pausing momentarily to glance over at him, her hands wrapped around her opponent's throat.

"That's right!" Misato exclaimed. "Next pairings: Asuka/Shinji-and-Fate/Mayumi!"

At that moment, Hikari's cell-phone chirped. After looking at the caller-id, her face took on a truly manic expression that went unnoticed in the general chaos. She slipped out the door, and it was ten minutes before anyone even knew she was gone.

* * *

Rei sat on her throne, watching Hikari bounce around excitedly.

"All hail the great Ayanami!" she gleefully shouted, thrusting her fist into the air.

"This city is rotting," Rei intoned, trying to ignore the girl's antics.

"...yes!" Hikari agreed slavishly. "Yes! Exactly! It-"

"-is full of red," Rei continued, preparing her thoughts. "First..."

"Paint!"

"What?" Rei looked reproachfully at the girl who was supposed to be her utterly loyal and devoted servant.

"We'll pain over everything that is red!" She shouted gleefully. "All because you, oh wise Ayanami, have decided in your omnipotence-"

"Omniscience."

"-huh?"

"The correct word in that syntactic structure is 'omniscience,'" the wise Ayanami said by way of correction. "Although I am omnipotent as well."

"-oh. Then... oh wise Ayanami, you have decided in your omniscience, that..."

"Yes?" The wise Ayanami lifted a hand to a rope in preparation.

"-um, well, I forgot." Hikari pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and tried to find her place in the lines.

"If you're looking for your line in the script, it's right before the splash," the wise Ayanami said helpfully, testing the tension on the rope.

"Hm, splash, splash..." Hikari looked down the page. "Oh! There it is." She cleared her throat. "All because you, oh wise Ayanami, have decided in your omniscience to rid this city of the color Red!"

Splash.

Rei had pulled on the rope, opening the trap door beneath Hikari.

"Just as I suspected," Rei murmured, looking down the hole sadly. "It's not funny now. All because you forgot your line. You're fired."

"-dammit!" the hole echoed with Hikari's expletive.

_I hope the next prospect has a better memory,_ Rei thought, making her way back to her chair. _And a better punch line._

* * *

The next prospect, oddly enough, was preparing to play a rather demented version of Twister with one Shinji Ikari.

"Prepare for a world of pain, Shinji!" Asuka exclaimed cracking her knuckles and doing a few warm-up stretches.

"-um, aren't we on the same team?" the boy muttered uncomfortably. Asuka was just winding up to rip him a new one when her phone began playing a rather syrupy rendition of 'Fly me to the moon.'

"Ah!" Asuka chortled. "Too bad she's not here to hear it..." She put the phone to her ear. "Ja?"

"You're up next," a very bored-sounding secretary droned out.

"Hey! What're you doing with the First's cell-phone?? Like I care..."

"I'm her booking agent," the tired voice proclaimed.

"Oh! You're Miss Whats-er-face calling about... that job." Asuka looked around discretely, as if she were hiding something. She put a hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. "Business!" she said sweetly, stepping out of the room. Misato looked at Shinji. Shinji looked uncomfortable. Fate looked relieved now that her primary rival had left the room. Mayumi looked hungrily towards Shinji.

"Well-I-gotta-go-see-what-Asuka's-up-to!Bye!" Misato bounced over to the door.

"Take me with you?" Shinji begged, looking fearfully at his two admirers.

"Sorry! It-might-be-dangerous..."

"More dangerous than leaving me here?" he asked desperately, but she had already gone and shut the door. The lock clicked ominously throughout the suddenly quiet room, and that was when Shinji noticed that this was one of those doors with a keyhole on both sides, meaning he was in deep pudu.

"Dammit," he muttered, jiggling the door handle ineffectually as Fate slunk up behind him.

* * *

Asuka looked over the script.

"So I'm supposed to play a hyper spazzoid girl who is your devoted slave?"

"Something like that," Rei answered. "But first you must dye your hair." She tossed Asuka a can of blue hair dye.

"What??" Asuka screeched in disgust, before catching herself. "I mean, why?" she asked in a sickeningly sweet voice.

"Because I cannot wage a war against the color Red with you like that," Rei explained.

Ten minutes and one thorough dye-job later, Asuka walked back before Rei, her hair purple.

"You know," Asuka wondered aloud, "if I play a spastic girl with my hair like this, won't I be mistaken for Misato?" Rei did not answer. Asuka clasped her hands and began bouncing up and down "-hehehe! Hehehehehe! I'm-a-lunatic-I'm-a-lunatic!" She stopped bouncing and crossed her arms with a smirk. Rei's eyebrow twitched. "What?" Asuka demanded. "What is it? Someone behind me?" She looked over her shoulder and saw Misato standing there. A dark aura emanated from the woman, but Asuka scoffed this off. "Seriously, why do you act like that?" she asked, turning to face her erstwhile guardian. "I wanna know!"

"Do-you?" Misato asked, her voice deepening daemonically. "**It's a one way trip.**" Asuka backed up slightly, and Rei turned thoughtful at this exchange. She reached into her pocket and pulled out another bottle of hair dye, tossing it to Misato.

"I require a villain to obstruct my conquest, and you appear to be suitable for the job."

"-ooh-ooh-I-accept!"

Another dye job later, Misato bounced back into the room, her now-red hair bouncing with her.

"-hehe-look, I'm-Asuka!" She put her hands on her hips and began ordering an imaginary Shinji around. "Dummkoph-make-my-breakfast! Dummkoph-don't-forget-my-lunch! -hehehe!"

"Hey!" Asuka exclaimed, "I don't giggle like that!"

"Well-I-never-claimed-to-be-a-lunatic!" Misato yelled back. The two of them began a vociferous yet pointless argument as they left the cave to return to NERV proper, having forgotten all about Rei.

_You just can't get good help these days,_ the omnipotent albino thought with a sigh.

Just as Misato and Asuka reached the lower levels of NERV, Matriel the not-so-itsy-bitsy spider attacked.

* * *

Alarms blared and Gendo ran through the halls in a panic. Spying the two women for which he was searching, his eyes lit up.

"You," he pointed at a red-haired Misato, "Go get dressed and prepare to fight the Angel." He turned to a purple-haired Asuka "You come with me. We've got to find my son..."

"Don't bother," Asuka said to herself. "He's probably half-dead by now..." and indeed he was.

Thus Misato found herself mistaken for Asuka and tossed into Unit-02's entry plug. Soon she was conversing with a ghostly Kyoko.

"Wait, you're not Asuka," Kyoko murmured, fingering Misato's faux-red hair. "What have you done with my Asuka?" Her eyes flashed when Misato just sat there vibrating and smiling happily. "Where's my Asuka??" The obstinate woman still did not answer, and so Kyoko ejected her plug, causing it to go pitch-black inside the enclosed chamber. This did not sit well with Misato, who recalled bad memories of Second Impact. She began screaming and pounding on the door of the entry plug. Her fury eventually grew to the point that she warped herself right out of reality. Or into it, depending on your point of view. She eventually kicked the entry plug door with sufficient force to send it into an arc through the air, where it landed with a splash in the distance.

_Splash?_ Misato wondered, standing up in the plug. Her motion caused it to rock, and she looked over the edge to find she was in shallow red water, washed up on a beach. It was night, and in the distance, a massive white figure was curled up, her head resting on a massive obsidian sphere. Misato tromped through the water until she got to the beach, and her eyes were drawn by a sudden flash of light. Shinji sat up, wincing a bit, then noticed Misato. Panic crossed his face, then he remembered that Misato already knew about the resets.

"How'd-you-die?" she asked him.

"By molestation, of course!" he exclaimed, suddenly angry. "Why'd you have to leave like that?"

"-oops-sorry-hehehe!"

"...no you're not," Shinji said with a sigh. That was when he noticed the giant Rei sleeping peacefully in the distance.

"Huh," he said, scratching the back of his head. "That's new."


	18. Girl Trouble

Girl Troubles

In a rather nondescript section of Tokyo-3 was a rather ordinary bar, and inside this bar sat Shinji, slowly turning a glass of amber fluid around and around in his hands, and every once in a while, taking a drink.

"_I apologize, Ikari."_ Rei's downcast eyes and sad expression went beyond the term 'puppy eyes' and Shinji was nearly tripping over himself to reassure the girl.

"_No, no, it's okay, Rei," _She had smiled wistfully at his use of her given name. _"I mean, sure, you took over everyone's mind, and..."_ He tried a different tack. _"Well, what I mean is, everyone wishes they could change reality every now and then, it's just that you _can_ change reality, and..."_ He had talked himself into a corner again. He tried to start over, but Rei had put a finger on his lips.

"_Don't rationalize it," _she had said, eyes sad as ever. _"It means a lot that you try, though." _And so she had walked away. All the girls now seemed to have either moved on, or gotten over him. The ones who had not, now had their anger and attention focused, at least temporarily, on Rei, the cause of their latest travails.

He lifted the drink to his lips, took another swallow, and sighed deeply. At that point he happened to notice the rather short, and quite studiously dressed young boy that sat himself down on the bar stool next to him. The boy looked as if he were about to order something, then seemed to realize his age (about ten, it looked like to Shinji), and dropped his hand, resting his head on a hand, elbow on bar. He let loose a deep sigh that Shinji recognized instantly.

"Girl troubles?" he glanced over at the boy, who glanced back. The small almost inconspicuous glasses perched on his nose hid eyes full of wariness at this stranger who had interrupted his moroseness. Wariness finally changed into resignation, and he nodded. Shinji lifted a finger, getting the bartenders attention. "Gimme another," he yelled. "-no, make that a double."

The bartender nodded with all the sageness his profession gave him, and without looking withdrew a bottle from where rows of them sat in their wooden alcoves. He undid the cork with a 'pop', tipped the bottle forward over a glass, and amber liquid sloshed. Another tip, another slosh, and then he slid the two full glasses down the bar, one after the other. The newcomer beside Shinji watched all this with a kind of bored fascination.

"Fresh pressed sparkling apple cider. Non-alcoholic," he said by way of explanation. "I mean, hey, it's not like we can hide our ages." The tired smile he gave his as-yet-unnamed ten-year-old companion elicited an answering grin of comradeship. The boy sipped his drink as he pulled a card out of his pocket, staring at it with a kind of apprehension that Shinji knew well. That was when Shinji happened to notice just what kind of card it was. He spewed his drink, descending into a coughing fit until he had cleared his windpipe. The boy eyed him curiously, then Shinji pulled a similar card from his pocket, eliciting raised eyebrows from his companion.

It was at this point that Kamo happened to be hopping from head to head towards Shinji, having noticed him.

"Ah, Aniki! So this is where you've been..." he trailed off when he noticed Shinji's companion. "Wait... This Aniki, and that Aniki..." The rat quickly put two and two together as he saw them eying each other's cards. "Oh crap. Oh crapcrapcrap-"

Shinji and Negi continued their fateful encounter.

"This is awesome," Negi exclaimed, eying Shinji's cards. They both had arranged their collections on the bar-top, and a crowd was forming. "I've never met a magister with as many cards as I have!"

Shinji was simply dumbfounded to see someone with cards like his. It quickly dawned on him what he was seeing.

"Wait. These," He pointed to a couple of the cards. "-these represent real people." It was a statement, but sounded like a question.

"Right." Negi looked quizzically at Shinji, wondering why a fellow magi would not know something so simple.

"-so for instance, you said this one can read minds," pointing at Nodoka's card.

"Yeah."

Shinji pondered the array of cards, and the powers Negi had described.

"So tell me about your girls' powers." The boy's face was beaming with excitement at finding a possible ally. His former funk was forgotten, at least by him. Probably not by his girls, however. Whatever that trouble was.

"Oh, haha," Shinji looked a bit embarrassed. Next to Negi's cards, his look like a circus carnival in his eyes. "Really, you don't want to know..."

"No, I do," Negi insisted, so emphatically that Shinji reluctantly gave in.

"Ah," he spread the cards. "This one can make any guy fall for her, umm, this one has these clips on her head, and they," he trailed off, since describing A10 clips would open a whole nother can of worms, and require more explanations. He hurried on to the next card, and began speaking before immediately regretting it. Hikari's card had her in her drill sergeant's uniform, her arms crossed, the stun baton in one hand balanced by her deadly-serious eyes. "Oh, uh, heh, she's, well..." His explanation trailed off.

"What?"

"No, you really don't-"

"Come on, what did you say?"

"I said she's kind of a dominatrix!" he finally exclaimed, too loudly. He hurriedly looked around, in case Hikari had been nearby. Thankfully she was not.

He was rather surprised by the look of awe in Negi's eyes.

"Wow, so you've got a mind-bender, what looks like a reality-distorter (apparently Asuka), a close-combat type..."

Shinji had definitely not considered his squad in terms of combat possibilities. He tried to shuffle and hide the rest of the cards. If Negi had gone off just on Asuka, Rei, and Hikari, there was no telling...

"Hey!" He was pointing at Fate's card. "Who's she?" Shinji sweated. "It says 'Fate' on the card," Negi said, his eyes narrowing. "But it's female."

"So?" Shinji was again puzzled.

"Fate," Negi insisted. "-guy, about your height, white hair, serious look," He was surprised at the look of recognition that crossed Shinji's face.

"Oh! Yeah, Fate... I mean Mana... got him as a pactio power, but she tore up the card and tried for another..." He trailed off, realizing that he had let on to having kissed Fate (Mana) more than once. He needn't have worried, since Negi was flabbergasted at those words. Then he burst out laughing. Shinji patiently waited for him to calm down.

"Sorry," Negi wheezed, "It's just that the Fate I know will be really embarrassed when he finds out I know about this, next time we fight. That you actually summoned him against his will, and-"

"Fight?" Shinji wondered. His confusion had become permanent.

"Yeah," Negi insisted enthusiastically. "Hey, bring all your girls here, I'd like to meet them and learn more about their powers! I'll bring mine too," and so saying, he gathered all his cards and put them to his forehead before Shinji could protest.

"No, wait...! Didn't you say that..." all the girls appeared before Shinji finished speaking. "-you had girl problems...?" he finished, uselessly. A collage of girls appeared at the bar, tall, short, blonde, red-head, causing Shinji's eyes to goggle.

"Hey!" Asuna's hands were on her hips, her expression angry. "Don't think I've forgiven you yet, Negi-bouzu!"

Negi apparently realized what he had forgotten, for he sidled up to Shinji's side.

"-don't leave me hanging here," he whispered in an undertone, causing Shinji to sigh and bring his cards to his forehead. His spinelessness brought him the same problem Negi's enthusiasm had caused. Shinji's harem appeared in a flash of light, and Asuka immediately cut a path towards the hapless boy.

"Hey!" she screeched, causing the bartender to wince as the store lost its entire collection of wine in one fell swoop. "Didn't I tell you not to summon me without permission??" Shinji was in the middle of cooking up a very convincing Shinji-ism, when Asuka immediately noticed her counterpart in Negi's harem, and was also noticed by said rival. "Shinjiiii! You'd better not having been kissing without permission, you slut!" Asuka had no idea that the other girls were Negi's, not Shinji's. Asuna simply snorted.

"As if I'd kiss such a guy!" she exclaimed, casting a glance of aspersion in Shinji's direction.

"Wait just a minute! He's not that bad a kisser!" Asuka immediately realized her mistake but it was too late to retract her words. Shinji blushed, then Asuka blushed, then she flew around, pointing a steady finger at her lord and master. "I'll deal with you later, nitwit!" She then turned to find Asuna in her face, staring her down.

"Why do you have a pactio with him?" Asuna asked. "It's obvious you don't like him."

"Hah!" Asuka chortled. "You didn't sound so hot for that kid a minute ago, sister!" 'That kid' was, along with Shinji, trying to sidle towards the door. Shinji happened to notice Negi's doom approaching and waggled his eyebrows towards Negi. Negi for his part looked questioningly at Shinji, then a panicked look came into his eyes, and he kind of jerked his head, 'hmphing' a little as if indicating something behind Shinji. Neither understood the other until it was too late.

"-um, Negi-sensei," Negi jumped and Nodoka's soft tremulous voice. "I'm honored you invoked the summoning clause of our relationship, and-" Shinji couldn't suppress a wince of sympathy as he watched Negi sweat. Then he jumped when arms surrounded him, one of them holding a dangerous high-voltage instrument.

"Shinji," Hikari purred into the boy's ear. "I've been doing quite a bit of... 'experimenting' with this, and I've-"

Trying to ignore Hikari's words and ministrations, he happened to glance over to where Asuka and Asuna were preparing to blow the joint. Asuna had concentrated chi into her right hand and magic in her left.

"Kanka!" she spat out, bringing them together and surrounding herself with a vivid white light that caused her long pony-tails to stand out suddenly. Asuka thinned her lips, and reached up to switch one of her Doom clips over to Angst. She then gathered Doom in her left hand as a ball of blackness, and Angst in her right as a jagged angry red. Even she paused momentarily, wondering for a bit if she was doing something wise. Then she clapped her hands together, plunging her personal space into blackness lit with red fringes.

The lights flickered, whiteness of Asuna's Kanka met darkness of Asuka's dread power, Hikari proceeded to seduce Shinji, and Nodoka blushed, studying Hikari's technique for later use on Negi.

"What have we done?" Shinji and Negi echoed together, as Kamo fled the continent.


	19. Angels Like Their Legs IV

After tearing a hole in the very fabric of reality that took the combined might of the Ancient Professor, Megaman, and all of Misato's Chaos magic to set right again, things returned to relative normal (relative being be operating word). Shinji's harem and Negi's harem stood facing each other, after the mutual agreement that some sort of introductions were in order to prevent further damage to the time-space continuum.

Shinji nodded amicably to Negi, who nodded back.

"Shinji."

"Negi Springfield."

The two shook hands.

Asuka made dramatic retching noises.

"Geez, do you have to be so civil??"

"Yeah, Negi," Asuna put in. "He's your competitor!" She and Asuka glowered at each other. Rei and Nodoka glanced apprehensively at each other. Rei's face changed with a sudden 'ping' to bright cheerfulness.

"I am Rei!" she exclaimed happily. "Peace and joy!" with a wide smile she stretched out her arms and approached Nodoka, who kind of backed away. Asuka jumped away spastically, terror in her eyes.

"Oh-God! She changed personalities again!"

"Say, Shinji," Fate/Mana said coyly, "There's more of them than there is of us..." She eyed Konoka, Yue, and the others of Negi's harem.

"Yeah," Hikari said breathlessly, suddenly beside Shinji and intertwining her arms through his. "You need to get busy," she cooed into his ear. "Why don't you start with me..."

As Shinji desperately tried to extricate himself from Hikari's glue-like personality, Negi took on a look of intense study, pondering the possibilities of adding Battalion Shinji's strength to his own Harem. Nodoka gravitated to his side.

"S-Sensei looks cute when he's thinking like that," she said shyly, causing Negi to break concentration.

"Yeah!" Konoka ecstatically embraced Negi, though to her it was more of a brother-sister hug, but the others did not see it that way.

"Kyaaa! He's so cute!"

"Kyaaa! Kyaaaa!"

*mob*

etc etc

Some time later, Shinji and Negi were hiding in an alleyway, breathing hard from a lot of fleeing. The girls, meanwhile, had formed search parties and were busy combing the city for their lost masters.

"Shinji!" Asuka's voice in the distance, yelling. "Shi-i-i-inji-i-i-i!"

"I think we lost them," Shinji whispered, and Negi nodded as they both calmed their breathing.

"SHINJI!" Clattering, crashes of overturning garbage cans, and dumpster lids being opened. "You're making me angry, Shinji!!"

"How did you get involved with someone like that?" Negi wondered. "I mean, I admit my girls are psychotic too, but..."

"-ah, it's a long story," Shinji began to sweat as Asuka's voice deepened.

"You won't _like_ me when I'm angry!" More clattering, smashing of glass. Shinji began to worry, while Negi, who didn't know Asuka's ways, just chuckled.

"This is getting out of hand-" Negi was cut off by a roar.

"GRAAAAAAH!" Asuka's voice was almost unrecognizable. Negi looked over, only to see Shinji's fleeing form.

"If you have half the smarts you look to have, you'd be running too!" he called back. Negi ran. Behind him, Asuka went on a rampage. Negi caught up with Shinji, using magic to enhance his speed so he had the breath to talk.

"How is she doing that? One human can't cause all that carnage we heard-"

"Her clips!" Shinji yelled, white-faced as he pointed behind him Negi. "This is the power of Doom! ...I think. Angst is always a bit messier..."

Negi looked back, and saw a giant Asuka towering over the skyscrapers of Tokyo-3.

"ASUKA SMASH!" She yelled, flattening the city block Negi and Shinji had just vacated. In the distance sirens began to wail, and Shinji was filled with relief that his father had decided to launch an Eva against Asuka. Then he caught sight of what was the actual cause of the alarms. Approaching Asuka's position, flattening buildings as he came, was Sahaquiel. The Angel did not look at all like he had in the original time-line, a massive eye-covered abomination falling from the sky to obliterate Tokyo-3. Well, okay, he was still a massive eye-covered abomination, and as he moved he was obliterating the city, but that was where the similarities ended. In fact, he looked like a giant Hutt covered with eyes, wearing a gigantic blue police hat and badge.

"Ahem-hrm." The Angel cleared its throat and began speaking in a low rumbling voice, looking over a giant pad of paper it held. "In accordance with the provisions against harboring and genetically modifying captured Angelic citizens, I hereby-"

"TOO MANY WORDS FROM GIANT BLUBBER THING! ASUKA SMASH!"

And Asuka smashed. Shinji and Negi got away in the carnage.

Meanwhile, outside Tokyo-3, the slowly growing Angel Conclave was about to get a new member. At this moment, Satchiel lay on top of a crumbling giant building that, when looked at right, resembled a psychiatrist's couch. Shamshel 'sat' to one side, looking over a notebook filled with squibbles that might have been Angelic writing, or might have simply been Shamshel's meaningless doodles.

"So tell me more about your problem," he said in a very clinical voice.

"I keep losing my legs!" wailed Satchiel. "You don't know how traumatic that can be-"

"Please, stay calm, I'm only trying to help," Shamshel insisted. He was interrupted by a dot that got bigger and bigger as it sailed through the sky. Shamshel squinted, frowned, then his 'face' lit up with recognition. "Sahaquiel!" he exclaimed. "Look, brother!" he said, pointing a tentacle at the Angel's descending form. "Sahaquiel is finally here to obliterate this accursed city once and for all!" He did not know that Sahaquiel had been sent on his way via Asuka Express.

"But whatever happened to Matriel?" Satchiel asked.

Before Shamshel could make an informed guess, Sahaquiel's dynamic entry obliterated the newly formed Angel Conclave.


	20. Rei's Love Potion Number Nine III

Gendo-Bunshin

In this rather quiet and dingy section of Tokyo-3, was a street, and alongside it, buildings, which implied alleyways. Peeking around the corner of one such alleyway were two young heads, looking first one way, then the other.

"I think it's safe," Shinji mumbled, slipping out of the dirty alley, Negi on his heels. Asuka-Hulk was busy wrecking the other side of the city, and the other girls were trying to calm her down, so the two boys figured they were safe for the moment. Negi eyed a bar, and shot Shinji a conspiratorial look.

"You know, what you said earlier wasn't quite true," he said, slipping a hand into a pocket.

"-what...?"

"You said it wasn't possible to hide our ages," Negi said cryptically, tossing Shinji a small pill. Shinji fumbled, then managed to catch it before it dropped to the ground.

"What-" He cut himself off when Negi swallowed the pill and grew several years older. Shinji stared wide-eyed for a moment, shrugged, popped the pill... and grew twenty-five years older.

"-gah!" Negi palmed his sixteen-year-old face. "I gave you my experimental pill! I was saving that for a special... occasion..." he fell silent so as not to reveal something truly disturbing. Shinji fingered the mustache and beard on his thirty-nine-year-old face.

"Huh. Weird..." he coughed at how deep his voice was. "Hey!" he grabbed his throat. "My voice!" He backpedaled as Negi fell on his butt laughing. He backed into a wall, jumped as if he had been grabbed, then took off running down the road.

"Hey, Shinji!" Negi took off after him. "It's not that big a deal-" Negi's voice cut off as time skipped, and Shinji jumped everyone back several hours.

* * *

Battalion Shinji was facing Negi and his harem, standing in the exact position they had been in when they were making their introductions. Asuka smashed her hand down into the pavement, apparently still thinking she was Asuka-Hulk. There was a crack, and it wasn't the pavement. Asuka let out a screech that was probably the voice equivalent of an N2 bomb. Buildings flattened in a half-mile radius, and Shinji reversed time again.

This time Asuka didn't try to hit the street, or turn into Asuka-Hulk, and Shinji breathed a sigh of relief. Undoubtedly, the jump through time had erased the effects of Negi's pill-

Beard.

"AAAH!" Shinji yelled, fingering his facial hair. Rei jumped, looked at Shinji with a look of slight awe.

"C-Commander," she said in a small respectful voice.

"Huh?" Asuka looked at Shinji and squinted. "Yeah, he's as old... as... Kaji." A look of absolute hunger entered her eyes. At this moment Asuna tackled Shinji, screaming,

"Old guy!!"

Shinji disentangled himself from his new admirers and ran down the street, his long legs allowing him to outdistance his pursuers. He was still running when a small hybrid screeched to a halt, its window rolling down. Ritsuko stuck her head out.

"Commander?!" she looked askance at him "What are you doing out here? Get in..."

Looking back at the girls making tracks towards his position, then looking back at the bleached-blond savior-devil in front of him, he signed away his soul and got in her car.

Ritsuko was silent during the drive back to the Linear Rail line, and Shinji was rather glad. Talk might have given him away. He breathed a sigh of relief as Ritsuko pulled the small car up towards the squat building that would lead him down towards NERV HQ, and safety from the newly-sprung-up Gendo Fan Club. Suddenly she turned the car aside and dragged him from the car. He was about to ask for an explanation when she dragged him into a janitor's closet inside the Linear Rail building and pushed him up against the wall.

"Sorry Gendo, I couldn't wait, you look really hot today for some reason," she pushed herself up against him languidly, causing him to gulp as his heart flopped. While it was true that Ritsuko was a bit on the old side, she obviously had quite a bit of experience. _This is Ritsuko!_ His mind screamed at him, but he was trapped by his hormones and her strength, which was greater than he would have thought. While he fought off his hormones, she frenched him.

When he was able to think and breathe again, he heard a nasty little sniggering sound. Looking down, he saw Kamo drop the piece of chalk he was holding and take off running.

_Oh God no..._

A card rested on top of her head, and Ritsuko crossed her eyes trying to look up through her bangs. She reached up and plucked the card from her hair.

"What's this?" she wondered idly. Shinji looked at his copy of the card. It showed a picture of the ineffable doctor crouched, her hands in the posture for Kage Bunshin. On it were written the words...

"What the hell is a 'Gendo Bunshin'," Ritsuko said, her brow furrowed in thought. Almost as an afterthought, she formed her hands into the shown posture, and with a bunch of poofs, she was surrounded by Gendos. She looked around and began to slobber, and Shinji managed to slip out the door, since he looked like the rest of them. He ran right into Rei, who immediately descended into a twitchy flirty wreck.

"C-C-Commander," she said demurely, slinking up to him and batting her eyes.

"No, it's me, it's Shinji!" he said desperately.

"That just makes it better," she said, twining her arms around his neck. At that moment, Ritsuko ran around the corner, spied Commander Shinji and Rei, and skidded to a halt.

"Gendo-Bunshin!" she spat, and a bunch of Gendos poofed into existence. Rei turned, took note of the situation, and copied Ritsuko's gesture.

"Rei-Bunshin!" Two Rei clones popped into existence, and the battle commenced. All three Reis fell into the familiar twitching-heap Drunken Monkey fighting stance, and the Gendos charged. The Reis were far more deadly than their Gendo counterparts, but were also far outnumbered. Shinji watched, quite certain he had never seen anything like this. He did not notice when the real Rei yanked him into a side room.

"I need more Reis!" she exclaimed, then she proceeded to force Shinji to give them to her. Well, after a few minutes she didn't have to force him any more, but that goes without saying.

At this point, Asuka and the Negi-ites burst into the small building and demanded that Ritsuko release Commander Shinji. A chase commenced up and down the long hall. Ritsuko turned into a door, and Asuka followed. Ritsuko came out another door further down the hall, quickly going into another door, Asuka on her heels. This happened again, Ritsuko coming out a door, Asuka chasing her, and going into another door. Seconds later, another door opened, and Asuka came out. This time it was she who was pursued by Ritsuko and a bunch of Gendos. A different door opened, Asuna ran out, and cut a path through the Gendo clones towards Ritsuko, who barely escaped through another door. This went on for some time until someone inevitably opened to door to the room in which Rei had pulled Shinji. The door slammed open and a bunch of Rei clones poured into the hallway. Asuka poked her head in and saw an exhausted Shinji, now back to his normal age.

"Darn," she said, with feeling.


	21. NREV 2000

Class Rep

(i.e. 'Cops')

"That thing on?" Hikari's face filled the viewfinder, and she reached forward. There were a few dull thumps as she flicked the lens.

"Yeah, it's on." Kensuke's voice.

"Good." She settled back, her expression turning hard and no-nonsense as she turned to walk away. "Well, follow me and we'll get started. Class 2-A isn't the worst class around, but it's got its share of misfits, let me tell ya." Her voice spoke of pure boredom, as if this were nothing but every day's business, and she had seen it all. Which she had, she being the Class Rep. "Still, just about everybody here does at least a modest job of keeping their nose clean. For instance... ah damn." her eyes caught a panicked expression, and she made a beeline for the offending male student. Kensuke did his best to keep up with her, viewfinder shaking and jostling as he moved.

"...I swear, I didn't do anything! Honest...!" the boy's voice became audible as the camera got closer. Hikari obviously wasn't moved one bit by his pleas.

"I'll be the judge of that," she said in a kind of tired way, making a move for his laptop.

"Please! You can't look, it's..." he cut off at her grim bemusement.

"If I can't look here, I'll just have to take it downtown, and look there." Her voice was hard and professional, with no give at all. Desperation filled the hapless boy's expression as he calculated how deeply in trouble he was. Finally he grabbed the computer and made a break for the door. Hikari sighed resignedly.

"Atsuki, we've got a runner," she murmured into the mike attached to her shoulder. The mike had a wire that ran down to a radio attached to her belt.

"Roger," the two-way radio crackled. The camera panned over in time to catch the extended blue flash and horrible crackling of a taser. The boy was down for the count.

* * *

The newly reformed Angel Conclave was a bustle of activity. Using whatever industrial techniques were available, the Angels had fashioned together what amounted to a working computer system, albeit writ large. The 'monitor' was a massive piece of white material upon which a picture was projected via home-built projector, wires crawling from the 'projector' to a massive box-like structure to the side. Shamshel sat in a makeshift chair, his tentacles writhing quickly over a scratched-together keyboard-like device.

"Alright!" he exclaimed as a logo popped up on the screen. NREV 2000, it said. Probably the operating system, but who knew.

"So what now?" Satchiel wondered, peering over his shoulder. The two halves of Israfel looked over his other shoulder.

"Now we see what games are on this sucker-" he cut himself off in mid-speech as the objects and words on the screen melted into a puddle at the bottom, to be replaced by a laughing face which took up the whole screen. "What the..."

"You've just been pwnt by Iruel, suckas!" the speakers blared. "-ahahahaha!"

"Oh, that's just a load of-!" Shamshel let loose a string of epithets, giving the computer box a vicious kick. "You invaded the wrong computer, you moron!" he yelled at the laughing face on the monitor. The face frowned delicately.

"What? Are you sure? So this isn't NREV...?"

"NERV you imbecile!" Shamshel roared. "You were supposed to invade NERV!"

"Oh." Long delicate pause. "Well in that case, put me on a memory stick and deliver me to this 'NERV', please."

"Oh, right," Shamshel threw up his 'hands' in frustration. "Why do I always have to do all the work?"

* * *

"-it's never good when they run," Hikari spoke towards the camera as she walked. "but it happens. Some just never learn."

"Do you always have to take such... drastic actions?" Kensuke's voice, asking a question as the camera moved slightly while they walked.

"Well, it's an ugly job," Hikari answered, "but somebody's gotta do it."

"Yeah-" he was cut off as they passed by Shinji, who as usual was surrounded by girls.

"-I still wanna know how Mayumi got a card!" Asuka yelled to a recalcitrant Shinji. The boy must have finally had enough, for he snapped back.

"She got it when she and Fate molested me to death in chapter seventeen!" he yelled. Asuka colored, then looked as is she was deciding whether to turn into Asuka-Hulk and pound him into the ground for his insolence.

"That's far enough," Hikari said, putting a hand on Asuka's shoulder. Asuka turned, fire in her eyes. "That's right, give me an excuse," Hikari said warningly, her hand on her stun baton. "You all should break up and return to your seats now." Asuka took this statement to mean more than Hikari meant for it to mean.

"We can't 'break up'! We're part of his harem-" Hikari's warning look silenced her. "We're his 'friends,'" Asuka said, rewording her faux pas.

"That's not what I meant," Hikari said tiredly, looking over at the clock on the wall. "I just meant you should break up the argument and return to your seats, the bell's about to ring." she turned towards the camera almost as an afterthought. "Turn that thing off," she said, her hand reaching forward until it filled the view-finder.

* * *

At this moment, Satchiel, Shamshel, and the two Israfels were sneaking down into Terminal Dogma to install Iruel into NERV's computer system. They turned a corner and ran right into Lilith's massive white form.

"Darn it!" she cursed with feeling. "Another escape attempt foiled!"

* * *

Author's Notes: Can't believe I spent so much time (ten minutes) cleaning this up. I couldn't remember more about COPS or I might've gotten more of the stereotype down. As it was, I was working more off TROOPERS, which itself is a Star Wars parody of COPS, so go figure


	22. Mao Empire

A/N: You're right, actually, that wasn't my best effort ^_^ that'll teach me to rush. Actually, re-doing it this way will let me kill two birds with one stone...

* * *

Hikari's class was a well-oiled machine, kept together by prodigious use of high-voltage, but a well-oiled machine nonetheless. The supreme empress looked around, and smiled to herself. Students were studying, conversing in hushed whispers, and occasionally shooting her looks of mixed envy and fear. A warmth spread through her being, one she recognized by now.

_Hmm, Shinji,_ she purred mentally, _you're not in class. I know we have a special relationship, but I'll still have to punish you if-_

His presence withdrew suddenly, and the embarrassment she felt made her giggle.

"What're you so happy about?" Hikari looked up to see Asuka, the only other person who had a similar exemption.

"Oh, nothing," Hikari said lightly.

"Hmph. Okay." Asuka spread out her books before her, shifting nervously in her seat.

"I'm sure you'll be finding out soon enough," Hikari needled, then fell silent. "He's bored again, you know."

"What??" Asuka brought the back of her hand to her forehead. "Oh, for crying out loud- Get out of my head, you perverted little boy!!" Ignoring the stares from those around her, she heaved out a sigh and laid her head on her arms. "I really hate it when he gets... I'm still blushing, aren't I?" Not waiting for a laughter-choked Hikari to respond, she began ranting.

"Look, just go be bored somewhere else!"

* * *

Shinji dropped the cards he had been holding, looking at the pictures of the girls he supposedly had a relationship with. Each of them had adapted in their own way, and were currently using or abusing the powers he had given them with a kiss.

_Well, that's great for them, but where does that leave me?_

Pushing himself to his feet, he left the abandoned classroom, stuffing the cards in his pocket. It was a short walk to the music department, where Fate/Mana had taken over. Oddly enough, she was alone in the giant music room, which lifted his spirits.

"Hey, Shinji," she said, lifting her eyes momentarily from her guitar, which she was currently harrassing.

"Want me to get my Cello?" Shinji asked, suddenly self-conscious. "It's been a while since I've played a duet, but I'm sure I could-"

"I play better alone," Mana answered absentmindedly as she plucked out a complicated section over and over, trying to get it right. He walked out quietly, and the haunting strains of music diminished.

The only girls left were those on the weirder side of his harem. On the other hand, there was always Rei. She would never let him down.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, he was retracting that line. He found himself standing at attention in the middle of a group of boys that varied wildly from jock to nerd to computer-wizard. Rei was walking back and forth in front of her troops, slowly bending and releasing a short riding crop she held in her hands. Her usual neutral expression was right at home with the Captain's uniform she had apparently programmed into her card.

Because of her beret, he couldn't be absolutely sure, but she had to be in Love Potion form. He sweated, trying not to stand out. The boys around him were obviously completely smitten and completely terrified. Despite this, he had yet to see Rei do anything to one of them physically.

She passed by where he was standing, did a double-take, then pulled him out of the line, leading him away by the arm. He wondered briefly if he had done something wrong.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "You don't have to stand like that with them, I'm just practicing." She looked at him expectantly, but he couldn't find any useful words. "They mean nothing to me," she insisted, leaning forward and touching her cheek briefly with her lips. This had it's usual effect of scrambling his thought processes beyond repair. Moments later he found himself pushed a few paces away. "Go on, you're making them jealous. I'll see you later." A trace of a smile and a wink kept him moving mindlessly, until he had turned the corner. He leaned against the wall, and raised a hand to his face.

_She kissed me on the cheek and sent me away. Even Rei doesn't have time for me._

He was wandering idly through the Geofront when Rits finally caught him.

"C'mon, we gotta do a sync test!" she said, carrying him bodily and chucking him into a test plug. He tried to protest, but she had already shoved the techs aside, and had personally dragged the purple-liquid-spewing hose over and turned it on full blast. With a sigh, he closed the hatch.

_Maybe Misato somehow switched bodies with her,_ he decided uneasily. An hour later, he was standing dripping yellow stuff onto the metal decking while she wrote some clinical things onto her ever-present clipboard.

"Just as I thought," she said, her voice in no way carrying the urgency of what she was saying. "Eva no longer responds to you."

"Oh," he said, "is that all- wait, what?"

"I said..." Before she could repeat what she said, she blushed, coughed, cleared her throat, and got control of herself. "Umm, by the way," she said, shifting uneasily, "sorry I chased around with a bunch of Gendos the other day."

"-err, yeah, no problem," she lied desperately, so he could get back to the important part. "Did you just say, I can't pilot any more?"

"Yes," the good doctor answered. "I'm afraid that no matter how many Gendos I can summon, it won't stop the Angels camped out west of the city. And, while I understand the Second Child can become She-Hulk, I doubt Pilot Soryu can take them all on at once."

"Yeah, well I'd put my money on Asuka," Shinji mumbled, looking away for a moment. "Still, it's not like it matters," he muttered. "After all, I can reverse time-" he shut himself up too late, remembering that the kindly soul before him was actually something of an arch enemy.

"What-was-that-Shinjie??" she asked, suddenly hovering over him, her eyes sparkling.

"-umm, well, no, I said that we need to reverse our thinking-"

"-oh no, that's not what you said, you dear little boy," she said, tut-tutting, "if my cute little ears heard right, you can control time? Just- just think of the possibilities!" Her lab coat swirled as she made grand gestures. "The world could be ours! The world! BWAAAHAHAHAHA-!" She only just barely managed to restrain herself, turning and covering her face with her arms.

"Umm, doc...?" Shinji tried to pry her arms apart, and got a momentary glimpse of a very red face.

"-can't believe I laughed like that in front of you she mumbled, clearing her throat and eventually managing to pull herself back together. "Look," she finally said, "I'll just ignore that you control time, if you ignore that I have such an evil laugh."

"-right..."

"Not that I really _am_ evil, mind you," she snapped quickly.

"No," he deadpanned, "of course not. Noooo..."

"Look, just never mind," she said, pushing a black plastic case into his hands and shoving him toward the door. "With the Evas out of the picture, that right there is humanity's last hope." She handed him an envelope. "Here's a train ticket. Remember, don't lose that case."

No one was looking towards the other side of the room where something white bulged around the corner of a corridor. On the other side of said corridor, Lilith danced with delight.

"I just heard something good, I just heard something good!" she said giddily, bouncing off to tell the other Angels.

* * *

"-so that's how it is." Lilith said to a thoughtful Shamshel. "They're defenseless. Completely defenseless!" The Angel smiled wickedly at this news. He immediately brought a tentacle to his mouth and emitted a shrill whistle. A storm of motion heralded the arrival of the two twin Angels, which, oddly enough, looked like dogs when motionless, which they rarely were.

"Heel, Bowser!" Shamshel commanded. "Heel, Tojo! Heel!" The two 'dogs' sat on their haunches, looking up adoringly at their master, tongues wagging. "Now," Shamshel said to Satchiel, "we've got to come up with a good plan that takes into account everything we know about what's changed in the city before us."

"Yeah? Satchiel says hesitantly. What kind of plan are you thinking about?"

Shamshel bent over towards his beloved pets.

"Boys?" He said, and the two creatures paid desperate attention, nearly vibrating with happiness. "Kill!" He yelled, pointing at the accursed city. The two sprang into motion, carving a path towards the hapless city.

The slow moaning of Tokyo-3's alert siren made Satchiel snicker.

"They're dead now, right brother?"

"Right-" Shamshel stopped speaking when a beam lanced out from the city-scape. A giant purple explosion threw the two dog-Angels into a handy nearby mountain.

"Haha, what now, you freaks??" an electronic female voice echoed loudly.

It was Mana, with her Trident, and Ramiel's remote control. The giant diamond hovered menacingly into the air.

"Sliiight change of plans," murmured Shamshel, who looked over towards where his brother was reflexively reaching down to try to protect his legs.

At this point in time, Shinji was trying to get a little rest on the train-ride over to wherever-it-was-Ritsuko-had-sent-him. This was made difficult by the fact that an attractive female his own age was asleep and slowly oozing her way onto his lap. He, of course, was a veteran of this situation, and was doing his best to try to discern whether this girl was the 'Tsundere' type, or the 'Yandere'. Accurately telling this vital piece of information was important for his continued survival.

Meanwhile, down the length of the train, a granny was having her life-savings stolen.

"What, you're not going to help her?" the girl cooed into his ear, and he desperately tried not to flinch in the wrong direction.

_Darnit, definitely Tsundere. But which kind? If it's Type A, I can probably handle it-_

Still wearing that beatific smile, the girl snatched his black plastic case and flung it at the nearest gangster, embedding the man's skull into the opposite side of the train.

"Hi," she said to him sweetly, "I'm Amane Mao. You just stay here, the Mao Empire military forces will deal with this!"

Shinji tried not to breathe wrong.

_Crap. Type B._


End file.
